:LUEL 



Ili'hU ii)'r.Mlu 




Class IrJdl . 

Book .^JlZT-^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE TRAGEDY 
OF THE KLONDIKE 



The 

TRAGEDY 

of the 

KLONDIKE 

This Book of Travels Gives the True 

Facts of What Took Place in 

the Gold-fields Under 

British Rule 



By 
LUELLA DAY 



^ 



NEW YORK 

1906 






LIBRARY of CONQRESsJ 
Two CoDles Rec«tved 

DEC 30 906 
claSs a xxc7no. 

' COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY LUELLA t>Af. 







THE AUTHOR. 

'laken two years after the murderous assault inflicted by 
an official of the Canadian Government. 



'OW BoDik ii jOebitateb 






f T/iose who fell by the wayside and 
whose bones whiten under the eternal 
snow of the ice-bound north. 



Those who mourn their dead lost on 
ijthe trail. 



Those whoi like myself survived the 
\ hardships and -the perils of the quest for 
gold in the Klondike, 



Not one statement herein contained is false or 
exaggerated, I have * 'nothing extenuated 
nor aught set down in malice, ' ' but append 
to this my solemn oath as to the truth of 
every statement contained in these pages* 

Sworn to be/ore me 
This Twenty-fist day of 
Sepumber^ 1906. 
Neiv York Ci(y, N. Y. 





^:^€.^ltrtS:G^^ 






PREFACE 

FROM time immemorial the hrnnan race has 
been more or less "gold-mad." The lust 
of gold has been the motive-power which 
has ruled the world, opened up new countries, 
made cities to spring up on the plains, discovered 
new continents, made wars and bloodshed in every 
part of the world. 

Solomon could not have built his temple with- 
out gold. It was the motive-power that led to 
the search for golden fleece. It was the lust for 
gold that brought Christopher Columbus across 
a trackless waste of water to discover a new 
world and a new people and finally to death in 
chains. 

Australia, with its vast area and varied re- 
sources, would still be a sheep-farm except for 
the discovery of auriferous deposits, which was 
but a penal colony instead of the world-power 
it is to-day. India was and is the most brilliant 
of Great Britain's crown- jewels as a producer of 
gold and precious stones. And all this has been 
acquired by the few, and the multitude has 
fallen by the wayside. Men have risked and lost 
their lives in desert amid thirst and sand-storm; 
have climbed almost inaccessible heights and 
perished by the many risks which beset the ex- 
plorer. And none of these things either daunt or 
deter men from the quest of the precious, glit- 



6 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

tering, golden lure, hidden in the bowels of the 
earth. 

In the ages whose history is unwritten lie the 
tragedies of the gold-lust. The Aztecs, ^^dth 
their primitive methods of roasting the ore, ac- 
cumulated vast stores of the yellow metal, which 
with fire and bloodshed the Spaniards took from 
them, and they went to their graves without re- 
vealing the source of their w ealth, which remains 
in great part the secret and the mystery of the 
land of the Aztec, our next-door neighbor. 

When the Aleutian Islands were found to pro- 
duce gold in quantities, their remote and almost 
inaccessible location in Behring's Strait did not 
deter the gold-hunter from his quest any more 
than did the search for the yellow metal yield to 
the risks of tropical fevers and deadly reptiles. 

This being brieflj^ a true history of the world's 
mining fever, a disease for which there is not and 
never will be a remedy, we come naturally to the 
latest craze and one of the most remarkable. The 
discovery of placer-gold and the rush for the 
region in the far Northwest, the Klondike, a 
much larger population and a greater number of 
adventurous spirits combined to make the rush 
excel that which invaded California in the his- 
toric days of " '49." 

It had been many years since a great gold dis- 
covery had been given to the world, when in 1897 
the Klondike discovery was given in its primi- 
tive form to the world at large. 

It was in the autumn of 1898 that the world, 
or that portion of it which is interested in mining, 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 7 

first heard of the great gold discovery or field in 
what has since come to be known as the Yukon 
Territory. 

Two prospectors claim credit for the dis- 
covery at the same time, though as for time they 
had no timepieces or almanacs. It was early 
spring, however, and the two prospectors were 
camped about sixty miles apart. These men were 
prospectors from boyhood, trained only as a 
hunting-dog is broken. 

They are a unique class of men. They go out 
every year with never-dying hope and supply of 
"grub." Either they work a portion of the year 
to earn money enough to "grub-stake" them- 
selves out of their savings, or else they enthuse 
some one into a belief that they will find a mine; 
and the man who finds the grub-stake is entitled 
to a one-half interest in any mining property 
which the prospector may locate. A grub-stake 
is a term used to designate the provisions carried 
by the prospector or the sleuth in search of gold. 
These necessarily are very limited, as he has to 
carry them on his back; a robe of fox-skin, in 
which to sleep, as being the warmest fur procur- 
able ; flour, bacon, salt, sugar and tea. The only 
cooking-utensils are a frying-pan, tin plate, tin 
cup, knife and fork, pick and shovel and gold- 
pan. 

Birch-bark is in profusion everywhere, and 
peeling it from the nearest tree the prospector 
builds a fire and cooks his flour, salt and water 
in a cake as thin as a flap- jack, and the frying of 
his bacon greases the pan for this elaborate meal. 



8 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

At the Christmas holidays of 1897 and 1898 
the exodus of Eastern people to the Klondike 
reached its height. 

The farmer left his plow in the furrow, the 
mechanic laid down his tools, the professional 
man, least fitted of all for the struggle, closed his 
office, and turned their faces to the frozen fields 
of that great northwest territory in Canada and 
Alaska. The newspapers devoted columns to the 
exploiting of the new gold-fields. 

Few alone remember the prophetic words of 
William H. Seward when, having completed the 
negotiations for the purchase of Alaska from the 
Russian government, which was then considered 
a political movement for territorial aggrandiza- 
tion, he said, "The generation which shall come 
after us will recognize that we have left them an 
inheritance more rich and more desirable than 
Australia or India is to Great Britain." 

"Pike's Peak or bust" was the crj^ when Colo- 
rado began to yield her golden store, but that 
was in the heart of the Continent and the way 
direct and the distance and dangers a purely com- 
parative quantity. 

But Alaska meant a land of eternal snow 
and ice, the crossing of the continent, a voyage 
north nearly to the pole, and all the appalling 
terrors of the unknown and probably the un- 
knowable. 

But the lust of gold is an unquenchable 
passion. 



CHAPTER I 

I HAD been in the practice of medicine in 
Chicago, 111., U. S. A., for a number of 
years, and for the three years preceding the 
"find" on the Klondike, had been closely confined 
by hospital-work in an official position. I had de- 
cided to take a rest. But where? I had traveled 
extensively and had no special desire to revisit 
any of the places I had been, and for some days 
was in a quandary just what to do. One morning 
my secretary came in before I had arisen, and 
playfully pointed out a long article in the morn- 
ing paper on the Klondike, and said : 

"Why don't you go there? It will be quite 
new, and you can practice anywhere and perhaps 
get a mine and make a fortune." 

My resolution was taken on the instant, and 
I said: "Yes, I will go to the Klondike. I will 
attend the sick, and I will make a fortune." And 
that is why I went to the gold-fields and how this 
story came to be written. 

In January, 1898, having some business in 
Portland, Ore., I took the train over the North- 
ern Pacific bound for that city. My bag- 
gage was not bulky, a sealskin coat and hat being 
the most important items in my outfit. 

The other requisites, I was advised, I could 
provide myself with to better advantage on the 
coast. Having finished my professional work 



10 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

in Portland, I took a train for San Francisco. 
The reason for this apparent getting away from 
my route was very simple, for at that point I 
could get better accommodations on better 
steamers than from a more northern port. Ar- 
rived in San Francisco and found the conditions 
were little if any better. Thousands of men were 
there waiting for steamship accommodations to 
the northward. For the third time in its history 
San Francisco had gone "gold-mad." The days 
of " '49," when the city was one of canvas, and 
the people came over the plains across the Isth- 
mus of Panama and through the Straits of Ma- 
gellan to the new Eldorado, were being re-en- 
acted in a city of palaces instead of one of can- 
vas tents. 

The days of Big Bonanza were not more full 
of excitement than those which followed the re- 
ports of the richness and extent of the great 
strike upon the Klondike. People, principally 
men, came into the city on every railway train 
and in wagon trains, and the old-time miners who 
came on foot were not lacking; and, as in all 
times of mining excitement, the crowd was a 
motley one. They made up parties among them- 
selves to stick together and bunk together while 
going into the Yukon Territory and Alaska, and 
made common cause in their adventure. I was 
fortunate in not having to wait long in the city 
by the Golden Gate. * 

A friend had given me a strong letter of in- 
troduction to a relative who was going in to con- 
struct a telephone-line in company with three 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 11 

other gentlemen. This was a most fortmiate in- 
cident. They invited me to join their party, 
which I did. 

They were cultivated gentlemen, and saved 
me from much that was disagreeable which I 
would have encountered had I been thrown with 
the rougher element. 

They took my passage to Dyea, the point of 
debarkation, the cost being much less than was to 
have been expected in view of the prices charged 
in past periods of mining excitement. I paid 
fifteen dollars from San Francisco to Victoria, 
and sixty-five dollars from Victoria to Dyea. 
This included one hundred pounds of baggage 
find a bunk, or berth — as you may call it. The 
latter were put up in every available inch of 
space, and when we packed ourselves into them 
Ave were as snug as though encased in the Cata- 
combs of Paris. 

The food was passable at first. The meat was 
killed on board, and we had plenty of canned 
provisions, but the number of passengers far ex- 
celled the capacity of the kitchen and store-rooms, 
so that as the days went by we were on shorter 
and shorter rations and the food was of less de- 
sirable quality. 

We left San Francisco on the steamship 
Umatilla February 5, and went into the port of 
Victoria, B. C, two days later. 

At Victoria the first serious work of the jour- 
ney was undertaken. After leaving here we were 
beyond the pale of civilization. From here we 
passed into the great Northwest, and the road 



12 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

led to the new mining-camp amid the frozen zone 
where Nature had hidden her treasure. 

It is a curious but a historical fact that either 
in the frozen North or pestiferous tropical 
swamps Nature hides her stores of gold to lure 
men to seek at the risk of their lives. 

At Victoria, B. C, we were compelled to out- 
fit for the journey and the trip across Chilcoot 
Pass. As many adventurous spirits richer in hope 
and pluck than money had hit the trail without 
a sufficient supply of provisions and had sufFerec] 
hardships and death before reaching the other 
side, the authorities interfered and prescribed the 
rations. 

The requisite amount of food prescribed by 
the authorities to obviate this condition of affairs 
was not less than six hundred pounds to each 
person. 

This consisted usually of flour, bacon, beans, 
canned tomatoes, sugar, tea, rice and salt — not a 
very epicurean menu, but nourishing and kept 
within the weight. 

After a day's shopping the results were amus- 
ing, had it not been indicative of perhaps fatal 
troubles for the people who were going where 
they knew not and after spoils they would never 
acquire. The scenes on the pier were certainly 
novel, not to say picturesque. Especially was 
this true of the Swedes and Norwegians, far, 
far from their native friends. The favorite cos- 
tume of these brave empire-builders seemed to 
be a suit of bright yellow felted cloth, about half 
an inch in thickness, riveted together; a fur cap 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 13 

of cone-shape, which could be pulled down over 
the face, the "windows" of the soul peering out 
through panes of isinglass. Tons of provisions 
and clothing, other tons of miner's tools, the 
flickering light of great torches making grotesque 
shadows on the wharf, this motley crowd of 
people of varied nations moving restlessly about, 
and if you have an imagination you can conjure 
up a picture the like of which will never be seen 
again. 

These tools, stores and provisions were 
bonded by the customs authorities through the 
United States Territory to Lake Bennett in 
British Columbia; so that we had the benefit of 
the lower prices without paying duty. Many, 
however, were not aware of this method of evad- 
ing duty, outfitted in the United States, and 
had endless trials and tribulations with both the 
Canadian and American customs officers. And 
the blackmail which was levied on these innocents 
was a wonder, and both Canadian and American 
revenue officers were equally culpable and dis- 
honest. 

We had purchased our tickets at Victoria on 
the American steamer Seattle, but the British 
customs officer ordered us ashore, saying she was 
overloaded by one hundred tons, and had more 
than the licensed number of passengers. 

To plead, to swear, to rave was of no avail, 
and ashore we had to go. The next ship booked 
to sail north was the Clara Nevada, and the first 
one to come south, with not only the news of the 
miners, but with a cargo of gold-dust and nug- 



14 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

gets in proof of the stories told of the wealth in 
sight on the Yukon. On her were the old and 
experienced miners who brought their dust with 
them, the proceeds of the first wash-up of im- 
portance which took place in the Klondike. It 
was expected that the Clara Nevada would sail in 
three days after we landed, but she did not appear 
that day nor the following one. There were 
people waiting for friends they had not seen in 
several years — the mothers, wives and sweethearts 
of the returning miners. The streets and the 
wharf were filled with a constantly increasing 
crowd. One old character, a sailor nicknamed 
"Black Jack," shook his head ominously. He ran 
out to sea in his little sloop and scanned the hori- 
zon several times a day, but there was no sign of 
the Clara Nevada. The steamer due was watched 
for with impatience. The crowd of waiting peo- 
ple increased daily. The pier was always alive 
with men straining their eyes like a castaway on 
the desert. 

The thought always in every man's mind was, 
"The man ahead of me may get the claim that 
should be mine." 

So day after daj^ passed. Then a ship was 
sighted, and a mighty shout went up. The Clara 
Nevada was booked to sail for the gold-fields 
February 14. She had arrived at last. But the 
old sailor shook his head sadly and said, "That's 
not the Clara Nevada." As she approached the 
anchorage she was seen to be the Islander, and 
brought the sad news that she had seen the Clara 
Nevada's topmast sticking out above the water 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 15 

between Skagway and Juno. The ship had sunk 
with all on board and with her load of treasure; 
not one person survived to tell the story. The 
crew and sixty-eight passengers were lost. The 
purser was a young man fond of adventure, of 
good family, and his mother offered a reward of 
fifty thousand dollars for the recovery of his 
body. A short time after some Indians fishing 
not far from where the ship went down found the 
body, which had washed ashore with the ice and 
rested upon the ice gathered along the shore. The 
body was dressed as usual in these latitudes — 
in a full set of furs, showing clearly that he had 
gone to his death in the performance of his duty 
and died at his post. 

Conjecture v.as rife as to how and why the 
ship was lost. The only evidence was found by 
his body, for the mustache and hair were singed 
to an extent that showed clearly that the ship 
had been destroyed by fire, and under such cir- 
cumstances in that latitude escape is almost im- 
possible. 

Those who jump overboard, even with life- 
preservers, perish with the cold in a short time, or 
are sucked under when the burning ship sinks and 
makes a whirlpool of her own, while those who 
remain on the ship are lost as soon as the flames 
reach the water's edge. 

The steamship Islander coming back on her 
regular trip offered the opportunity which for 
ten days we had waited with much impatience to 
get away to the frozen North. The desire to get 
into the gold-fields is as strong a passion as the 



16 Tlie Tragedy of the Klondike 

human animal is capable of, and each day's delay 
was most irritating, and each day longer than its 
predecessor. Our outfits were ready for em- 
barkation; we had, especially the women, less 
than a dozen in all, no source of amusement or 
recreation; men could gamble, and did, to pass 
away the time, but we women could only talk 
and dream of the golden harvest for which we 
had abandoned the comforts and luxuries of our 
Eastern homes. But no one was discouraged. It 
was a bond of interest which bound us together, 
whether a lady physician, like myself, or a girl 
going into a dance-hall. 

We were all thousands of miles away from 
home. A new life confronted us, and the spirit 
of helpfulness pervaded the waiting assemblage. 

Sleep was out of the question. The rattle of 
the hoisting-machinery, the cries of the steve- 
dores and the hoarsely shouted orders of the offi- 
cers all contributed to make a veritable pande- 
monium which was illuminated by the fitful glare 
of the torches which served to light the work, 
and to make the rest of the land and sea blacker 
and blacker and to fresco the wharf and ship 
with Rembrandtesque shadows. 

Day was fast breaking in the east and the sun 
rising out of the bosom of the Pacific Ocean when 
the work of stowing the cargo was complete and 
the order given for the passengers to embark. 

The Islander was an English vessel, iron pro- 
peller, built in Glasgow about eight years before 
for service in the Alaskan waters. She was 
brought around the Horn to Victoria, B. C. The 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 17 

license permitted of her carrying only three hun- 
dred passengers, but when there is gold in sight 
and gold coming out of the North, officials are 
not always too particular as to the counting of 
noses. On the trip of which I am writing we 
carried six hundred and eighty-four passengers, 
and as nearly every person had a dog, and some 
a dozen, the latter became a very distinct factor 
in the problem of transportation. Their provi- 
sion was to me a problem. I found, however, 
that the dogs would eat a special coarse variety 
of dried salmon known as "dog-salmon," and 
which is put up in bales like hay and thence fed 
to the dogs — not a diet which would tempt the 
appetite; and yet the native dog will do an aver- 
age of forty-five miles a day and a special breed 
of them will put sixty-five miles behind them in 
twenty-four hours. So you can see that the dog, 
while always man's best friend, is particularly so 
in the frozen North. 

In addition we had sixty oxen and a hundred 
head of horses for drawing heavy loads from 
Dyea to Sheep Camp. These animals were a 
most valuable adjunct, since the dogs are of little 
use when the grade is steep, as it is on this part 
of the trail. Once over the Chilcoot Pass the 
dogs begin to do their work, and along the lakes 
and rivers a team will draw loads averaging five 
hundred pounds, four dogs constituting a team. 

We had also about one hundred tons of pro- 
visions, eight hundred tons of baggage and nine 
hundred tons of freight. This comprised all the 
necessities of the miners, dog-sleds, picks, shovels, 



18 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

axes, gold-pans and snow-shoes. A gold-pan is 
used by the prospector to wash the dirt out of the 
gold. It is a primitive contrivance, much the 
same shape as an ordinary wash-basin. It has 
been in use many years. The miners put a 
shovelful of dirt into the pan and immerse it in 
a pool or tub of water. They keep shaking it all 
the time; the water washes away first the dirt, 
and then the gravel, and finally there is left noth- 
ing but the gold-dust and nuggets, which having 
the highest specific gravity remain at the bottom 
of the pan. 



CHAPTER II 

EARLY on the morning of February 17 
hundreds of people assembled on the pier, 
relatives and friends of those who were 
starting for the gold-fields. Some of them came 
hundreds of miles from the interior, and strong 
men wept bitterly as they bade farewell to their 
loved ones so soon to drop below the horizon and 
whose return was most uncertain from an ex- 
pedition so befraught with dangers and difficul- 
ties. Many of those who bade a tearful farewell 
to their loved ones never heard of them there- 
after. They dropped out of sight and were lost 
to the world. Their fate is and will always re- 
main a mystery. 

The Islander cast off her lines and put to sea 
at 7.30 and sailed out into the sun track under 
the command of Captain John Irving, who 
shortly turned her nose to the northwest. She 
had a full cargo destined for those who had al- 
ready entered upon their life in the mines of the 
Yukon Territory of Canada and Alaska. We 
had traveled about four thousand miles, eaten and 
drunk when and where we could, and at last were 
embarked on the final stage of our journey. The 
dogs seemed to have a premonition of the fate 
that awaited them and sent up their protest to 
heaven against the cruelty of mankind. If they 
had really known they were to meet with the cruel 



20 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

treatment which I afterward saw some of them 
receive they would all have jumped overboard, 
as a few of them did soon after we got under 
way. The old-time superstition of a dog howl- 
ing at the approach of death in a neighborhood 
seemed to take possession of the passengers and 
each looked at the other in the most abject terror, 
but it was a terror which begot silence and dis- 
couraged speech. We had a voyage of eleven 
days before us, perhaps one less or one more, as 
the weather permitted. Our cramped accommo- 
dations and our rather limited diet did not serve 
to dampen the enthusiasm of the gold-seekers. 

It would fill a volume to describe the motley 
crowd of passengers. The most interesting were 
the old-time prospectors and miners long past 
middle age, their skins tanned by years of ex- 
posure to the color and consistency of leather and 
this drawn over a rawboned frame, lean and mus- 
cular and devoid of an ounce of superfluous 
flesh. As for the rest they were tenderfeet mak- 
ing their first venture into a wild country. Col- 
lege professors, bankrupt merchants, bank clerks, 
lawyers and business men of all kinds made up 
the remainder. 

Naturally the old-timers were the center of 
attraction. They did not hesitate to draw the 
"long bow" in their reminiscences of the days of 
" '49," of which they possessed all the traditions; 
of the days of the big Bonanza Mine in Cah- 
fornia, when Marcus, Flood and O'Brien were 
the mining kings ; of Senator Stewart's big silver 
strike; of the terrors of Death Valley, and of the 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 21 

luck of Senator "Bill" Clark. To the imagina- 
tion of these neophytes embarkine: on their first 
adventures this was like pouring oil on the flames. 
They talked of gold all day and dreamed of it 
all night. 

Among the few women on board was a petite 
young Englishwoman who had her innings each 
day by telling us what they did "at home." Her 
husband, to whom she alluded affectionately at all 
times as "Jim dear," was a fine specimen of the 
British type who belong to the remittance class. 

"She felt vexed, in fact, she was a trifle angry, 
you know." She sat up all night that she might 
be at the head of the procession and secure the 
very best berth to be had on the vessel, and spent 
the remainder of the day in boasting to her less 
fortunate fellow passengers. Her stateroom, 
which was the largest on the ship, "you know," 
had double berths, "you know," and the door 
opened into the social hall, "you know," and the 
window opened from the inside so "Jim dear" 
could sit so comfortably by himself in his own 
stateroom and amuse himself, "you know, watch- 
ing the seals play hooky." And the stationary 
bowl was quite large enough, "you know," to 
afford a b-a-u-t-h, "you know." Their tickets 
being first-class entitled them to a seat at the cap- 
tain's table, "you know." She was so glad she 
had staid up all night and secured such excellent 
accommodations. She felt so sorry, "you know," 
for others less fortunate. As for herself she could 
endure hardships rather gracefully, "you know." 
She had ridden horseback over the mountains of 



22 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

South Africa and heard the panthers crj'- at mid- 
night, and saw something once about half a mile 
away on the side of the mountain that looked like 
a bear, but Jim dear had never had to undergo 
hardships in all his dear life and it ^vas for him 
she was most concerned on the trip, "you know." 
You can easily imagine her dismay and sur- 
prise when she boarded the ship and found that 
during the night they had utilized every inch of 
space on the inside of that vessel. It was occu- 
pied by tiers and tiers of the most rudely con- 
structed berths. Social halls, ladies' cabins, salons 
were all turned into a "bunk house." The large 
stateroom she had so carefully chosen for Jim 
dear's comfort now had four berths instead of 
two. The stationary bowl had been removed. 
The view from the large window was entirely 
obstructed by crates and crates of nasty dogs of 
the most ordinary breeding, "you know." 

"Oh!" she cried, "this is terrible — abominable 
— really disgraceful, you know. I must see the 
captain at once. Jim dear and I have first-class 
tickets and I shall insist on having the very best 
accommodations procurable on this ship, you 
know." 

It was growing cold. Those who had re- 
mained out on the deck caring for their dogs 
dropped in one after another till the air became 
so stifling one could scarcely breathe. Doors had 
to be left open the entire time regardless of the 
extreme cold. Yet everybody was good-natured 
and jolly. 

The sea became choppy after a few hours and 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 23 

nearly every one was seasick. We had no trouble 
serving meals for two days. Then everybody 
wanted to eat. When their appetites returned 
then the trouble began. Everybody wanted to 
eat and to eat at the same time. The appetite 
which succeeds seasickness and the salt air com- 
bined made them all ravenous. No seats were as- 
signed to the passengers ; it was purely a case of 
first come first served. It grew worse and worse 
from day to day — that mad rush for food. Finally 
they began to drop down over the railing into the 
main dining cabin below. Those who had formed 
in line and were waiting to get down the steps 
into the dining saloon found the tables already 
occupied by those who had, as it were, "just 
dropped in." 

This naturally bred trouble, and one day the 
steward drew a revolver. In a second a hundred 
guns were out, and it looked like a real case of 
"rough house," or rather of "rough ship." But 
Captain Irving was promptly on the scene, and 
so diplomatic and tactful did he prove that things 
quieted down promptly, and his arrangement of 
the meal hours gave perfect satisfaction there- 
after. 

The next few days were devoid of incident ex- 
cept that it was stormy. We ran into a gale of 
wind about three hundred miles north of Vic- 
toria and took refuge in Safety Cove, near Point 
Alexander. The gale raged with such force that 
it became prudent to seek this refuge at once. 
The wind whistled through the standing rigging 
and howled about the hull, causing the ship to 



24 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

pitch violently until we had made a change of 
course and stood in for Safety Cove. 

This is a small body of water which will not 
shelter more than two vessels at one time. The 
sheltering of the cove from the wind and waves 
raging outside gave us the first rest we had en- 
joyed for days. In shape it is a horse-shoe la- 
goon, and as we steamed into it the moment we 
had passed through the narrow inlet which gave 
ingress to the cove — a marvel to those on board — 
we ran into water as placid as a summer lake in 
the East. 

The mountains surrounding the cove rose 
almost perpendicular from the water's edge to a 
great height. The dark green foliage of the 
spruce trees, some of them two hundred feet in 
height, covered the mountain sides and softened 
the outlines of the forest. 

This great forest cast a myriad of shadows' re- 
flections over the diminutive bay until it seemed 
with the still waters that we were floating upon 
a sea of foliage. 

We had barely anchored in Safety Cove when 
our supply of water gave out. This was the most 
trying of our experiences on shipboard. Thirst 
exaggerates itself at sea as it does in the desert. 
The women wept, men cursed and prayed in 
many different languages. A few went gunning 
for the captain. Our good captain assured us 
that at daylight we would try to cross Queen 
Charlotte's Sound and take a full supply of 
water at the Indian village called Bella Bella, a 
distance of forty miles across the sound. All the 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 25 

wet goods on board were turned over that night 
by the captain to the passengers and crew. Sur- 
rounded by ice and snow we suffered the tortures 
of Tantalus. Soda water, beer and wine were ex- 
hausted, until at last in sheer desperation men 
drank catsup and Worcestershire sauce from the 
bottle. 

All this time the hundreds of dogs on board 
suffering for water kept up the most unearthly 
howling and yelping and were answered in ter- 
rorizing screams from the wild animals in the 
mountains just over our heads. 

We were not consoled by the recital of the his- 
tory of the cove. A whaling vessel had been cap- 
tured in this cove only a few years before and 
every one of the crew murdered. She was a 
whaler starting out for a three years' voyage and 
was heavily provisioned. She took refuge from 
storm in Safety Cove where we were then lying. 
All on board were sleeping peacefully when a few 
Indians of the Bella Bella tribe sneaked on them 
at night (in their little skin kayaks), and mas- 
sacred every one of them. The object of the at- 
tack was to loot the ship, which they did and 
abandoned her to her fate. 

It stormed all night and the lightning was both 
terrific and beautiful. Some of the foreigners, 
who were very superstitious, hid in their bunks, 
covered up their heads and shivered with fright. 
Even one American was decidedly inconsolable. 
It is the unknown that is always terrifying. 

All night the sighing of the wind through the 
branches of the huge pines sang a requiem for 



26 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

the murdered dead. The underbrush was covered 
with ice and snow and the conglomerate mass as- 
sumed the most grotesque figures. As they 
caught and reflected the lightning, they looked 
like corpses — and to add to the fright of the 
already panic-stricken passengers, many pro- 
claimed them the ghosts of the murdered crew. 



CHAPTER III 

WHEN morning dawned we started to 
cross Queen Charlotte's Sound, a dis- 
tance of some forty miles. Although 
the Safety Cove's huge, rocky wall had sheltered 
us, when we put to sea no sooner had we rounded 
the point than the gale struck the Islander with 
terrific force. The captain saw at once it was im- 
possible to cross the sound and the only thing to 
do was to put back into Safety Cove. But that 
was more easily said than done with that gale and 
sea running in Queen Charlotte's Sound. 

By good seamanship he put her about, but 
when she was broadside on the tremendous seas 
she keeled over on her side, and it seemed as 
though it was all up with us. Passengers were 
thrown from their bunks through glass doors, cut 
and bruised. All the dogs and freight on the up- 
per deck went overboard, nearly every dish in the 
pantry was broken, horses and oxen killed and 
crippled. She then righted herself and made her 
way back into Safety Cove, where religious 
services were held and all the passengers joined 
in singing the praises of our Redeemer. The 
passengers, who had been impatient to get out of 
Safety Cove that morning, were on their knees 
praying in a dozen different languages while she 
was on her side. They expected to be lost. 

Finally it began to snow. Snow-water does 
not quench thirst but we cooled our parched lips 

27 



28 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

and tongues and used it as sparingly as possible 
to relieve the acuteness of our suiFerings. 

At ten o'clock the next morning the gale had 
abated and we steamed out into Queen Char- 
lotte's Sound and at one o'clock we sighted Bella 
Bella. A shout of joy went up from every one 
on board at the certainty of soon getting plenty 
of fresh water, 

Bella Bella is an Indian village whose earlj- 
days are shrouded in antiquity, but their tradi- 
tions carry the village back long before the time 
of Christopher Columbus. Here we got a plenti- 
ful supply of pure water from a natural artesian 
flowing well and satisfied the craving of our 
palates for "aqua pura." 

The result of our exposure to this storm and 
the eating of snow put almost every one of the 
passengers on the sick list. There were twenty- 
six cases of pneumonia and eighteen cases of 
acute pleurisy. 

We arrived at Wrangel's on Wednesday, 
February 23. This proved to be a village of from 
150 to 200 log-cabins and tents and a population 
of about five hundred persons. There was a 
court-house there which reminded me of the log 
pig-pens that the darkies erected down in old 
Virginia. 

A passenger was arrested and dragged before 
the judge for the purpose of extorting some 
whiskey which he had with him for medicinal pur- 
poses and which the judge and sheriff thought 
would be a pleasant lubricant for their interior 
economy. He was an innocent-looking chap 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 29 

with a smile that was child-like and bland — but 
they had made a mistake. He was a Montana 
cowboy and he whipped out a couple of "44" 
guns, began shooting with both hands, cleaned 
out the court-house in a minute, and that court 
never sat again. 

The professional element was well represented 
by eight lawyers, two doctors and two drug- 
stores. The remainder of the population were 
engaged in canning salmon for the use of the 
world. 

Here was our first opportunity to set foot on 
shore since we started, and all hands took ad- 
vantage of it gleefully, the more so when they 
discovered that there were a large number of 
eating places. A descent was made upon these, 
ship's fare having become tiresome. The stop- 
ping of ships there readily explained what at first 
glance seemed a phantom of restaurants. 

After a few hours we continued on our way 
northward and on Thursday and in a little over 
24 hours we reached Juno Alaska. On the trip we 
stopped at a distress signal displayed by a vessel 
high and dry on the rocks. No one was on board. 
We found her to be the Corona and a vessel which 
preceded us had taken off her passengers and 
crew and they were already on their way to the 
gold fields. She was in a narrow channel off 
shore and went at full speed on the rocks. So 
great ^^ as the impact that her bow was driven 
20 feet into the air and she was left there 
immovable. 

Juno Alaska is a town of some 4,000 inhabi- 



30 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

tants. It is near the great Treadwell mines. It is a 
typical town of the mining camps. The town 
was running wide open day and night. Dance 
halls and gambling houses furnished the diversion 
of the miners and shopkeepers. 

On the corner of one of the prominent streets 
I recognized the voice of "The nice young Ameri- 
can," who had entertained us on the voyage with 
religious songs. He had erected a platform of 
drygoods boxes and enterprisingly started the old 
envelope game. I stopped and this is what I 
heard : 

"Here it is, gentlemen; $3.00 to you, sir. Now 
who will be the next? I will be kind enough to 
offer you another. Who will take this chance for 
a half-dollar and take whatever it calls for ? It is 
too bad this one is worth nothing. You must try 
again." 

After a few hours here we steamed north to 
Skagway, reaching there Friday night, February 
28. The thermometer w^as 23 degrees below zero 
and our ship was a mass of ice — sides, deck and 
rigging. We were all put ashore at Skagway 
though our tickets read to Dyea. They could not 
land in Dyea, so the officers said. 

The customs officers were there. All the goods 
were unloaded at Skagway. We had to pay 25 
cents a day for wharf privileges for each bag or 
box unloaded. Then we must pay $5.00 a ton for 
freighting by tugboat to Dyea, and pay two 
fares. You had to put up money at Skagway for 
duties or pay a broker twentj^ dollars for making- 
out custom house papers ; then the officers would 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 31 

send a convoy with you at a cost of six dollars a 
day and board to see that you didn't open the 
goods in the United States if they were English 
or Canadian goods. If you bought your outfit in 
Victoria as we did you would wish you had 
outfitted in the United States before you got 
through with the United States customs officers 
at Skagway. And if you outfitted in the United 
States in Seattle you w^ould have to pay as much 
as the goods cost you before you got through 
with the Canadian customs officers on top of 
Chilcoot Pass. It was a case, so far as the pil- 
grim was concerned, of pull Dick, pull Devil. In- 
cessantly the pilgrim got the worst of it. It is a 
disgrace to civilization to see such blackmail cov- 
ered up with the American eagle and the English 
crown of King George. Many a man who could 
not stand the graft after packing his outfit to the 
top of the Chilcoot Pass sacrificed his outfit and 
returned; others packed on their backs over the 
summit till they had satisfied the Shylocks with 
the pound of flesh. 

An American customs officer took from a sick 
patient of mine suffering from acute pleurisy a 
bottle of whiskey which I had begged from a 
passenger on board ship, and because he did not 
want to give it up was threatened with arrest. 
Yet in Skagway you could buy all the whiskey 
you wanted for a dollar a drink and one saloon 
was supplied daily by the customs officers. The 
duty on a horse was $30, on a dog $7.50. 



CHAPTER IV 

OUR party went on to Dyea. I shall never 
forget that night in Dyea. After sleeping 
on a board floor in a log cabin with only 
my fox robe wrapped around me and my travel- 
ing bag for a pillow we arose with the sun and 
made preparations for that part of the journey 
that every one so much dreaded. It was 23 de- 
grees below zero that night. 

We were at the end of our steamship journey 
and must "hit" the trail. We started in company 
with about a thousand others up that narrow, 
winding canyon. Its almost perpendicular walls 
were covered with glaciers. The snow was 20 
feet deep in places. A hard trail about two feet 
wide wound around abrupt bluffs for twenty 
miles up the canyon to the foot of Chilcoot Pass. 
It was my first experience of rough life and it 
held a certain amount of charm of novelty. All 
day long we tramped through snow and ice. As 
night overtook us we made camp under the over- 
hanging rocks along the side of the mountain. 
When we had eaten a cold lunch I requested that 
my bed be arranged that I might lie down for the 
night. I had "hoofed it," as the miners say, for 
ten miles and was very tired. A hole was 
shoveled in the snow just under the projection 
of a large bowlder. A few spruce boughs were 
carefully arranged and I folded my fox robe 
around me and lay down within a few feet of the 

33 



34 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

four California gentlemen whom I had met and 
traveled with from San Francisco, they agreeing 
to give me their protection for my professional 
services if needed on the trail. 

A fire was kept burning all night as the 
momitains through that part were filled with wild 
animals that could be heard near us during the 
night. I had scarcely touched my rude bed be- 
fore I was sound asleep and awoke early in the 
morning refreshed and ready for the day's jour- 
ney. We reached Sheep Camp that night and 
there we pitched our tents and had every comfort 
that camp life can give in that country. There we 
found at the foot of that mammoth formation of 
rocks called Chilcoot Pass a cit}^ of tents, about 
200 in all. In less than a week it had increased to 
several thousand. The trail was blocked as far 
down the canyon as the eye could carry. People 
and provisions continued to arrive day and night 
for six weeks until there was scarcely room to 
pitch another tent. 

From Sheep Camp to the foot of Chilcoot 
Pass was about four miles. The grade became 
very steep. The provisions and freight had to be 
all landed on top of this mountain peak. About 
half-way to the top it was possible to use horses 
and oxen and dogs. From that point to the top 
men had to pack their belongings on their backs. 
The trail was only about two feet wide and was 
packed snow a dozen feet deep. On either side 
the snow was loose and if a man slipped off the 
trail with his load he disappeared never to be seen 
again. 



k 






? 



^ 







^ The Tragedy of the Klondike 85 

On the left-hand side of the trail was an im- 
mense glacier from which a section broke loose 
and plunged down the mountain side all the way 
into Sheep Camp. Several people living in tents 
lost their lives at this time. These facts will 
demonstrate to the friends of m^en who started 
for the gold-fields why thej'- were never heard of 
again. Mail service was almost a nullity and 
each one was too busy taking care of himself and 
his own life to bother writing to friends and rela- 
tives. Those who perished in the snow left no 
signs as to who they were or \-^'hence they came. 
Nicknames were the common identifications and 
as in all new mining camps such titles as "Swift 
Water Bill," "Black Sullivan," "Duke of Scook- 
um," "Caribou Billy" and "Easy Money" are 
fair samples of the nomenclature of the Klondike. 

In climbing the Chilcoot Pass we started 
from a point on the side of the mountain about 
three-fourths of a mile to the peak of the sum- 
mit, a trail which led up so steep a declivitj'^ that 
steps had been cut into the frozen snow and ice 
with an axe, and ropes stretched down the sides 
to assist the travelers up the ascent, which was 
nearl}^ perpendicular. The miners followed 
each other closely, the one behind putting his foot 
down in the footprints of the man ahead of him. 

Viewed from a point below the procession 
resembled nothing so much as a procession of 
black ants. A few days later there was a snow- 
slide from this mountain and the entire trail was 
engulfed in the avalanche for two miles down 
the canyon. The snow was a hundred feet deep 



36 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

in places. How many lives were lost will never 
be known, for while the sea gives up its dead the 
snow and ice preserves and keeps its bodies await- 
ing the last trump. 

We started from Sheep Camp at daybreak 
and reached the summit at noonday. I was just 
one hour climbing the last three-quarters of a 
mile to the top of the Chilcoot Pass. The horses 
and oxen and dogs were sent through White Pass 
from Skagway to Lake Linderman, a much 
greater distance but more accessible. Just over 
the peak on top of the mountain we found the 
Canadian customs officials. As our goods were 
purchased in Victoria we had no such trouble as 
did those who came in with American goods. 
The freight being loaded on sleds on top of the 
mountain it was coasted down for a mile and a 
half to the foot of the Chilcoot Pass on the op- 
posite side. Only one sled was started at a time 
and it was followed b}'- its owner in the primitive 
fashion of country schoolboys who sit down on 
the frozen surface and slide to the foot of the 
mountain, which brought him to the ice in Long 
Lake. At this point we found our dogs, and 
both men and dogs joined in pulling the sleds on 
a gentle incline to Caribou Crossing. The first 
place we struck was Lake Linderman, where we 
staid and slept one night. Thence we continued 
to Caribou Crossing where we were among the 
first to make camp. When we had reached Lake 
Linderman I became very weary and gladly met 
a man whose necessity compelled him to sell a fine 
dog, a young St. Bernard called Prince Na- 




Airs. Bell Mulrooney and party on Lon^ Lake. The first woman to 
cross Chilkoot Pass in 1897. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 87 

poleon. He was of enormous size and great 
strength though not a year old. His hair was 
silky and a light lemon color with a white collar 
around his neck. His tail was long and beauti- 
fully feathered and he had all the courage and in- 
telligence of his race. I then purchased a willow 
basket sled and a set of harness and settled my- 
self down to the first comfort I had had on the 
trail. He would frisk around mornings and 
seemed pleased to be put in the harness. He soon 
attached himself to me and slept at my feet every 
night. 

In the basket sled with me was my fox robe 
and my dressing bag and flying light. We trav- 
eled day after day until we reached Caribou 
Crossing, where we were to remain and wait 
for the ice to break up and go out of the lakes and 
rivers, and where the men after looking about 
took our party up the Watson river about three 
miles, just across Lake Bennett from Caribou 
Crossing. At this place timber of the largest and 
finest quality was plentiful and the men found 
good exercise whipsawing lumber for building 
the boats to take us on to the gold-fields as soon 
as the ice went out of the rivers. Here we en- 
joyed restful nights after the trials of the steam- 
ship voyage and the hardships and perils of the 
Chilcoot Pass. It occupied the six weeks we 
were camped here before the ice went out. 
Our party had escaped accident and sickness up 
to this time, more fortunate than most in this 
respect. 

One day when the boat-building had begun 



38 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

one of the party, whom we called JNIr. Cady, fell 
from the sawhorse, being in his opinion badly in- 
jured. He was a good fellow but was unfortu- 
nately born tired. He had a quaint turn of humor 
and explained his accident to me in this wise. 

"Well, you see the trouble was that I had one 
more bean on the left side of my stomach than I 
had on the right side, so I very naturally lost my 
balance and tumbled to the ground." 

Cady was the agent of the Sunset Telephone 
Co., going in with his assistants. A young man 
very blond and an expert in his own business, he 
did not take kindly to anything more in the line 
of hard work than to tumble off the sawhorse, 
and leave the boat-building job to others. He 
was so long and thin and bald-headed that he was 
known on the trail as the "Kangaroo." Always 
smiling and joking, he was the life of the party 
and the laughs he evoked by his witticisms served 
to help over many rough places on our journey. 

Walter, another of the part}^ was a big, 
husky fellow, w^ell educated, with a bazoo like a 
steam calliope. He had been a politician and 
when his voice was commented w^on he said he 
was the son of his father, who was very religious, 
and when he prayed could be heard a mile. 

Richard was a German and a citizen of the 
"Vaterland." He was one of the most enthusi- 
astic admirers of Bismarck, the "Iron Chancel- 
lor," to whose utterances he always referred as 
being law. 

George was the good boy of the party and as 
loyal to King Edward as Richard was to Bis- 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 39 

marck. One day at the dinner-table he said he 
would never become a citizen of the United 
States, where he had lived most of his life. On 
my request for a reason for this declaration he 
said, "Because the United States does not protect 
her citizens in foreign countries." 

I replied that she did protect her citizens. 

"How patriotic and charming of you," he 
said in his smiling way. "But now just tell me 
where your government has protected her citizens 
here in Alaska. They certainly did not stand bj^ 
Mr. Ivey in Skagway and he was in the right, 
when he took the law in his own hands. After 
Joaquin Miller's brother shot down the British 
flag Ivey served official notice upon the Canadian 
customs officers to take bags and baggage and 
'hike' themselves over the Chilcoot Pass within 
24 hours." 

"Well," I said, "didn't they 'hike over'?" And 
he replied, "Did not your government remove 
Mr. Ivey shortly thereafter? Whereas, if an 
English officer had done the same thing he would 
have been sent to Parliament." 

Walter cited at once the Venezuelan incident 
during President Cleveland's administration and 
other similar episodes. 

"Ah!" said George, "but the individual rare- 
ly gets protection." The conversation was wax- 
ing hot when I tied my handkerchief to my pencil 
and stuck it in the beanpot which was sitting in 
the middle of the table. Amid the laugh that fol- 
lowed this raising of the flag of truce the incident 
was forgotten. 



CHAPTER V 

THE boats were completed and we held a 
council of war. The ice had gone out of 
the Watson river, a narrow canyon 
stream, but had not gone out of Lake Bennett, so 
we took our boats and went down to the lake 
where we put them on the ice and hauled them on 
sleds to Caribou Crossing where we made camp 
again, awaiting with the constantly increasing 
crowd, the opening of navigation. ^ly compan- 
ions thought it advisable to send me in a small 
boat, called a peterboro canoe, in charge of Fred 
Eversole, of Seattle, a most expert oarsman. He 
advised against taking my dog in the same boat. 
"Said and I agreed with him" that he would 
follow along the banks near which we would 
voyage. 

We had hardly started when we got into a 
whirlpool and the boat capsized in 20 feet of 
water. I knew I could not swim. I knew my 
feet touched bottom. I felt it, and then I came 
to the surface half drowned and strangling. The 
oarsman clung to the overturned boat which 
drifted rapidly down the swift stream and 
stranded on a sandbar about six hundred feet be- 
low. As I disappeared beneath the water I 
heard a most pitiful cry, followed by the sound of 
a large body dropping from a high place into the 

41 



42 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

water. When I came up my dog Napoleon was 
swimming about the place v^here I had disap- 
peared. He seized me and I grappled him con- 
vulsively. Instantly I saw I was drowning the 
dog as well as myself and I let go and took hold 
of his long hair and he towed me about 200 feet 
down the stream where he saw a safe landing and 
dragged me on shore. I was benumbed with 
cold. The water was like ice-water. I was al- 
most insensible for a while. When I could open 
my eyes my faithful dog was standin^^ over me 
wagging his tail with a most mournful expres- 
sion. Some men had hastened to my assistance 
who were boat-building near by and saw us cap- 
size, but Napoleon's growls and display of teeth 
drove them away. Shortly I was able to get on 
my feet and was taken to a cabin and got a 
change of dry clothes and some hot coffee. Then 
I and my noble dog started and walked down the 
banks of the river to Lake Bennett where we met 
the boatman. There we found the solid ice and 
walked side by side, "me and my dog," across 
Lake Bennett to Caribou Crossing. 

While we were boat-building on the shores of 
Watson River the population of Caribou Cross- 
ing had increased from a few hundred to some 
12,000 souls. These people were all bound for 
the gold-fields and this being only a waiting- 
place prior to embarkation there was none of the 
gambling and drinking usual in camps where 
gold is being taken out. 

The enterprise of modern or yellow journal- 
ism was never better illustrated than at Caribou 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 43 

Crossing, when a printer named Swinehart, from 
same Canadian town, had set up on the ic«, 
under canvas, a hand-press and font of type. It 
was newsy and whatever news came into camp 
was handed him by the recipients of letters and so 
the whole company had the benefit of the various 
items of impersonal gossip from the East. I 
bought the first copy and stood by the press and 
saw it come off, paying 25 cents for it. This be- 
ing the first paper published in the Yukon, the 
editor, proprietor, compositor and proof-reader 
took my quarter, the first he received, and set it 
in a mortise in the feed-bed of the press. 

The relief from the strain of the past weeks 
naturally caused a reaction and fun and froHc 
held sway among the gold-seekers. The ice was 
evidently getting ready to move out and we were 
all on the watch day and night. It had loosened 
around the edges and the great cracks began to 
spread across the surface in an imitation of a 
spider's web. To pass away the time, which we 
still had to wait, and during which we all becam.e 
more and more impatient, one of our fellow voy- 
agers, a Mr. White, a real "Southern gentleman" 
prominent in the politics of his state and who was 
accompanying his son, a young man on his first 
prospecting tour, gave a unique dinner. 

They were both men of extraordinary stature 
and physique, and probably the two finest speci- 
mens of educated phj^sical manhood I saw in that 
country. The dinner was given in his tent and 
the invitations were written on shavings from the 
boat-builders' work. 




44 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

They read as follows: 



,4 '^ tuoay^ icZZ^ cCif-ZXCt^ 



The menu was as primitive as the cards of in- 
vitation, but one does not have to take bitters to 
get up an appetite on the trail. We had corn 
bread, beans and bacon, rice pudding and coffee, 
a veritable feast. 

Our enjoyment was great, especially as our 
host told darky stories by the score with inimitable 
dialect. He related a story of a young nigger 
who went into a store and asked for a good razor. 

The salesman looked over a lot and selecting 
one handed it out with the remark: "There's as 
good a razor as any man ever shaved with." 

"Shaved wif! Shaved wif! I doan want no 
razzer to shave wif, I want one for social pur- 
poses, sir." 

At daybreak on the second of June, while the 
camp was MTapped in slumber, a sudden and pe- 
culiar noise awoke us all. It was a crackling and 
grinding noise which proclaimed the fact that the 
ice had at last broken up and was going out, pil- 
ing itself one cake upon another (some of which 
were eight feet in thickness and twenty feet 
square) in its mad rush hurried forward by the 
swift mountain current toward the Behring Sea. 

About ten o'clock in the morning the lake had 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 45 

cleared so that the boats which were already 
loaded were able to follow the ice down the river. 
Every man was anxious to get his boat in the 
water and get away first. Yet there was no foul- 
ing or colliding. The whip-sawing of the lum- 
ber for those boats had cost far too much labor 
and time for them to be jeopardized recklessly. 

We drifted with the current six miles to Lake 
Tagish, where were the barracks of the North- 
west Mounted Police. Here we had to have our 
boats numbered and register the names of the 
passengers in case of their being lost. It cost a 
small compusory fee, about one dollar. 

At Lake Tagish I met a Mr. and Mrs. Wilson 
and the latter's brother, Fred Baker, from the 
life-saving station at San Francisco. I had treat- 
ed Mr. Wilson at Lake Linderman. He had 
pneumonia and since that time I had not seen 
them until now. He had suffered a relapse. I 
left my party with whom I was able to keep in 
touch with their full consent, knowing the neces- 
sity of the case. 

Young Baker in a single scow and the whole 
camp outfit preceded us down the river. He 
selected the camping ground and hung out the 
flag to call us in shore, where we would find a fire 
built, the tent up and all the preparations made 
for as comfortable a night as was possible in 
those frozen regions. It seemed a new life after 
the experiences of the past to get so mucli of 
comfort and such thoughtful and congenial com- 
panionship. The gentlemen with whom I had 
come in were kind and thoughtful, but I was the 



46 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

only lady in the party and female companionship 
becomes more desirable the farther one gets from 
civilization. 

At Tagish, while we were waiting to get our 
boats numbered and thousands were in line in 
the barracks grounds, I noticed some peculiar 
goings-on just outside of the barracks and about 
200 yards tielow. When the barracks gates were 
opened a certain number were let in and then the 
gates were closed and another thousand awaited 
their turn to get into the grounds. 

An officer was walking to and fro some 200 
yards below the barracks and occasionally a man 
Avould pass him and hand him a package without 
saying a word, and that same man could be seen 
in a short time going down the river. The pack- 
age looked suspiciously like a bottle of whiskey. 

This was evidently the way to facilitate the 
procuring of the necessary number without 
waiting an interminable time. 

But while I had money I had none of the 
potent whiskey which seemed to be the "open 
sesame" to quick transit down the river. 

Although it was a penal offense "for some" 
to take whiskey into the country, I had been told 
that "Black Sullivan" was taking a scow-load of 
whiskey into the Yukon on a special permit. So 
to him I hied me and unfolded my "tale of woe." 

He was a fine specimen of the brunet type 
of Milesian, six feet tall, weighing 220 pounds, 
with white skin, luminous, dark, expressive eyes 
and hair wavy and black as a raven, and a heart 
in him as big as an ox. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 47 

He had been into the Yukon country before 
and was well known to all the miners. When I 
made my request he looked at me, with an air of 
grieved surprise and said, "As sure as my name 
is 'Black Sullivan' I haven't got a drop of 
whiskey." 

I explained to him that I wanted to get a sick 
man through the line and it seemed that a bottle 
of whiskey was the only thing that would do it. 

He looked me over and looked clear through 
me and then turning he pointed to his scow and 
said in a mellow tone of voice, "If you will go 
down there in a half -hour and feel in my coat 
pocket, you may find something." 

I offered him the customary price, $5. He 
declined the money, saying, "No, just wish Black 
Sullivan a safe journey through the White 
Horse Rapids." 

When I returned to the barracks I found the 
officer had been changed. Another was then on 
duty. I took the chances that the tariff was the 
same and as I went by him I handed him the bot- 
tle without a word. 

He took it and the spell was broken. Loiter- 
ing about, it was not long before a man ap- 
proached me, took the names of our party and 
handed me the sign with the number of our boat 
upon it and evaporated. 

This enabled us to get away at once and join 
the procession of boats down the river. 

We first passed tlirough Miles Canyon. The 
canyon is narrow, not over forty feet wide, and 
the current is very rapid. The walls of the can- 



48 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

yon are about 600 feet high and the crevasse is a 
fissure of the rocks. After passing through this 
and shooting the Squaw Rapids, which are just 
below, we found a large red flag on which was 
inscribed "Danger about three miles below," and 
we knew that we must be near White Horse 
Rapids, which from the time of the starting on 
the trail had been the bugbear of every member 
of the party. 

We were called ashore to the camp of the po- 
lice and about 30 men who were acting as pilots 
and who were camped with them. We were told 
by the police that it was entirely unsafe to at- 
tempt to run the rapids without a pilot and that 
the charges were $25 for each boat. 

The tariff had been so heavy and the var- 
ious species of graft so continuous that most of 
the voyagers were at the end of their tether and 
to extract any more was like getting blood out of 
a stone. 

Every one went down to the rapids and 
looked over the situation. They decided that all 
the women should go ashore and walk around the 
rapids, which was about half a mile, the men to 
take their chances and shoot the rapids with their 
boat-loads of provisions and miners' supplies. 
Our boat with the men went through the rapids, 
^lyself and JSIrs. Wilson started ahead with my 
dog Napoleon walking by my side along the 
bank. Napoleon paid no attention to any one 
going through until my first traveling compan- 
ions, the Cady party, came shooting down the 
river. As they struck the rapids the spray com- 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 49 

pletely submerged the boat and its occupants and 
Napoleon having evidently recognized his old 
friends, and fearing for their safety, emitted a 
howl of dismay, and without a moment's hesita- 
tion, plunged into the seething canyon. 

The rapids were boiling and foaming and 
whirling but Napoleon was undaunted and was 
swept into the whirlpool. He spun around about 
twenty times until a compassionate man in a 
small boat went to his rescue. Napoleon man- 
aged to get out of the current and came ashore 
to me wagging his tail, sure of the approbation 
of affection with which I greeted him. 

Those who first passed the rapids, our party 
among them, reached the placid water below in 
safety. 

In mid-channel I discovered two things. First 
that the right and left-hand sides of the channel 
were entirely different. There must be some rea- 
son for it, I was sure. I walked below the rapids 
and looked up the stream. Suddenly the sun 
shone on the water at such an angle that I could 
see through and beneath the clear water to where 
at least two feet beneath the surface was a sharp- 
pointed and ragged rock in the middle of the 
channel. Then I watched the boats as they came 
down. I saw at once that the current set so 
that any boat of any size taking the left-hand 
channel would inevitably be drawn by the strong 
current on this rock and be destroyed, and while 
an Indian was cavorting about in the left-hand 
channel in a light canoe without accident it 
seemed to me he was being used as one uses a 



50 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

wooden decoy duck in the feeding grounds of the 
East, to convey to the people coming down that 
he was in the safe channel, whereas, with a 
heavily loaded boat, to follow him was impos- 
sible, and those who tried it found, no matter 
how strong and skilful, their boat drawn by that 
current was doomed to drift onto that sunken 
rock and be lost, while all on board must perish. 
I stood on the bank at an altitude of forty feet 
and saw the crowd of boats coming. The first to 
take the left-hand channel were fellow passengers 
with me from San Francisco. There were eight 
men in the boat, full of hope and joy at their 
approach to the gold-fields. They were all sing- 
ing when the boat struck the sunken rock, reared 
into the air and went to pieces in a few minutes. 
Only one of the men came into the whirlpool 
after swimming the rapids. 

Had it been possible to get a pole or a rope or 
anything that I could have reached ten feet to 
him I could have saved him, but none was avail- 
able. He shouted his last messages to his mother 
and wife at me, and I buried my face in my hands 
to shut out the awful sight of a fellow creature 
struggling as he did against the inevitable. He 
must have swum around the whirlpool a dozen or 
more times after swimming through the rapids 
before liis superb athletic frame gave in to the 
strain put upon it and he went down to his death. 
I hurried to the police station and asked them to 
send ropes and a small boat to be stationed at the 
whirlpool for life-saving purposes, which thej'^ 
did, and many were saved thereafter through this 
precautionary measure. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 51 

I then drew a map showing the channels and 
the position of this sunken rock, and returned to 
the camp above the rapids, where the men were 
waiting to come through. I sought out Black 
Sullivan first. He had asked me to wish him a 
safe passage of the rapids. I showed him my 
map and explained to him what I had seen and 
knew. We discussed the matter fully. Then he 
called Mr. Lippy, of Seattle, into the conference. 
Each had a big scow with a valuable cargo. 
Lippy's consisted of provisions, while Sullivan 
had a scow-load of whiskey worth a dollar a drink. 
Each had a crew of several men; and finally Sul- 
livan took my advice, while Lippy laughed at the 
theories and insisted on taking the left channel, 
which he did. I started ahead to see them go 
through the rapids. 

Lippy struck the place where the current sep- 
arated, then took the left channel. Sullivan was 
immediately behind him and took the right-hand 
channel, passed safely through and emerged into 
the placid water below. Lippy had sixteen men 
rowing, and they were drilled to fill the boat with 
great power, which he figured would overcome 
any current he could encounter. 

But he had made a mistake, and when he came 
to that current setting upon the rock his crew 
of oarsmen were as helpless as children, and the 
scow was driven onto the rock and split in two, 
both halves standing up in the air until they were 
almost perpendicular. 

The crew fortunately got entangled in the 
ropes with which the cargo was fastened, and 



52 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

most of them were rescued from the whirlpool, 
into which they had drifted. I was called to care 
for one of his men who had broken his wrist, and 
to whom I attended as well as I could under the 
circumstances. Both Lippy and Black Sullivan 
had a personal following, and this led to their se- 
lecting the routes of their respective chieftains 
through the rapids. Those who followed Sulli- 
van went through as safely as he did, and a few 
of Lippy's henchmen got through, though the 
majority were wrecked. An amusing incident 
was the case of a man in a small boat who struck 
the rock and was hurled high in the air. When 
he came down he landed safely in a big boat in 
the right-hand channel, while his boat and pro- 
visions were lost. It must be remembered that 
the procession of boats was continuous; once 
started there was no stopping. You got in line 
and there was no place to land until the rapids 
were passed and you were beyond the whirlpool. 
As soon as we could, Mrs. Wilson and m3^self 
started up the canj^on. We had both refused to 
go on, feeling that it was our duty to do all we 
could to warn the crowd that was yet to come of 
the unknown evils which confronted them. Those 
who got through safely went on as fast as pos- 
sible to the gold-fields, caring nothing for those 
who were left behind. 

In their imagination they saw gold nuggets 
piled up like paving-stones awaiting their arrival 
and selection. The ocean voyage, the Chilcoot 
Pass, the White Horse Rapids, all lost their hor- 
rors. They were almost in sight of the gold-fields 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 53 

and the Midas-like wealth of which they had 
heard and which was the magnet that had drawn 
them from civilization to the borders of the Arctic 
Circle. 

The story of the making of the first American 
flag for the army of the thirteen colonies at the 
time of the Revolutionary War is too well known 
to need anything but a reference, and this is the 
story of the first United States flag made in the 
Klondike. 

After we had succeeded in stopping the mad 
rush and persuading those we could get at to take 
the proper channel we sewed sugar- and flour- 
sacks together and printed upon it, "Danger — 
Keep to the right," and hung it on a pole pro- 
jecting from the bank over the water just above 
where the channel divided, in plain view of every 
boat that came down the stream. While we were 
doing this the pilots were in consultation, evi- 
dently displeased at our action. Shortly there- 
after I saw one of the pilots sneakingly pull the 
flag in so close to the bank that approaching boats 
could not see it till they were directly under it. 
Then again the Indian appeared in his canoe in 
the left channel. I was then satisfied in my own 
mind that the Indian was being used as a decoy 
to lure men to death who would not or could 
not pay the required fee to the pilots. I hired a 
Norwegian, a young man in whom I had con- 
fidence, to guard the signal-flag all night, which 
he did till the crowd had passed in safety, and we 
joined the procession the next morning and 
floated down the river to the golden country still 



54 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

farther north. We now confronted a voyage of 
six hundred miles upon the Yukon River before 
reaching Dawson and the gold-fields. The days 
went gliding by, and we enjoyed every hour of 
that wonderful journey. The mountains were 
covered with wild game — the moose, mountain- 
sheep, cinnamon and black bear, black and silver 
gray fox, the latter, one of the most beautiful of 
fur-bearing animals. 

The many rivers emptying into the Yukon are 
large and beautiful mountain-streams. 

The current was never less than six miles an 
hour, and when the channel narrowed the current 
carried us along at twenty miles an hour. The 
mountain scenery was sublime. The descent 
from our point of embarkation to the coast was 
abrupt, as is all the Pacific coast of the North- 
west, and this will account for our rapid progress 
without effort. 

We traveled for about three hundred miles, 
day and night, and then by agreement we all 
stopped for a night's rest. We made camp on the 
right-hand bank of the Yukon River, and 
near heavily timbered land, where a small band 
of Indians had also stopped for the night. There 
we built a big camp-fire and had the first hot food 
and drink we had enjoyed for many long days. 

My friend Mrs. Wilson and myself agreed 
to sit up and watch the midnight sun. Every 
man in camp was soon wrapped in profound 
slumber, and we two women were wrapped in 
that silence which is found alone in the 
mountains. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 55 

The ocean is always restless and usually 
noisy, but the calm of the mountains in that unin- 
habited cold country is indescribably impressive. 

Suddenly I heard a peculiar noise. Some- 
thing had fallen into the water. I thought some 
man had been wrecked in his boat just up the 
river. But I could do nothing except go quickly 
to the tent of Fred Baker, Mrs. Wilson's brother, 
and awaken him quietly. He raised the flap of his 
tent and looked up the river. He saw what 
proved to be a large moose swimming for the op- 
posite shore. Seizing his rifle he opened fire. The 
men each had their guns by their side, although 
they had taken ofl" their clothes for the first time 
in weeks, and thinking they were the subjects of 
an Indian attack they began shooting in every 
direction without waiting to find out what they 
were shooting at. Fred hit the moose at his first 
shot, and it came drifting down, oblivious of the 
bullets that rained around it, until opposite to 
where we were encamped, and we drew the car- 
cass to shore and proceeded to skin it and cut it 
up. Fair play is a jewel. We ladies were en- 
titled, "so the crowd said," to the hide, horns and 
this great carcass. We donated it to the camp. 
So we had "all of us" a feast. The men, who 
had little on but their undershirts, kept shooting 
at the carcass for nearly ten minutes, when we 
drew it ashore and skinned it. There were only 
three bullet-holes in the hide. Most of the white 
men and all of the Indians each thought the 
other had inaugurated hostilities, and both took 
to the tall timber, fearing results. 



50 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

In less than an hour we began preparations 
for a "Pot Latch" or great feast. The sun was 
up and shining bright. The men who had taken 
to the woods, hundreds of them, were gathered in 
as they shouted and yelled from the woods for 
something to cover their nakedness. They were 
with the Indians, and all of them were in a de- 
nuded state. We sent our Indian guide to tell 
them that we were not there to steal their game, 
but on our way to the gold-fields, and would be 
off before sunset. We told the guide to invite 
the tribe to join us in the feast of moose-meat, so 
they sent scouts out in every direction to gather 
them in. 

At noon we huddled together around a huge 
camp-fire over which was suspended the carcass 
of the moose, and cutting off chunks and strips 
we fell to eating it and enjoyed our gastronomic 
orgy with the zest derived from months of self- 
denial. We had not tasted fresh meat in four 
months and had our last decent meal in Victoria. 

If you have never seen an Indian eat you will 
find it hard to believe the capacity of an Indian's 
stomach. I passed it to them, and saw them in 
many cases eat not less than ten pounds of roast 
meat. It was a question in my mind how the 
stomach could accommodate itself to such a 
quantity of food at one time. At the close of the 
feast we divided the meat remaining among the 
Indians and our own party, and again embarked 
in our boats and floated on down the river. 

We were still 300 miles from the gold- 
fields. The next stop we made was at Sel- 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 57 

kirk, an Indian trading-post. There we found 
one white man, a Mr. Pitt, a man of wonderful 
character and integrity, which endeared him to 
whites and Indians alike. He had been there 
many years and had the most complete influence 
over the Indians, and was the only person in the 
country who could control them. He explained 
to us the mysteries of the Totem poles which 
stand at the wigwams of the chiefs. The carving 
is in the nature of a genealogical tree, and tells 
the family history to the Indians passing by of 
those who dwell therein. 

As we drifted down the rapid stream and 
swung around an abrupt turn in the river we 
could see the mountain called Big Scookum many 
miles in the distance. It overhangs Dawson City. 

Mr. Pitt told us, years and years ago, when 
the Selkirk Indians were holding a council of 
war at the foot of this mountain planning an at- 
tack on the Mallamoot tribe, while in conference 
there was an avalanche of rock, which we could 
see, and it buried beneath it all the warriors of 
the tribe. It required the growth of a new gen- 
eration before their plans could be carried out. 

One day more, drifting with the current, and 
we reached Dawson, which is in Canadian terri- 
tory. Here most of the crowd finished their 
journey. A few went on down the Yukon River 
about a hundred miles to Eagle City, Alaska, 
preferring to prospect for gold where the stars 
and stripes float over Uncle Sam's domain. 



CHAPTER VI 

WHEN we landed in Dawson there had 
been, a few days previous, the usual 
flood that follows the going of the ice 
out of the rivers. There was a foot of mud and 
silt over the entire city. This consisted of about 
500 tents and a few log houses, only two of which 
were of important size. The Alaska Commer- 
cial Company's store was a one-story building 
about 40 X 60 feet, and the Yukon Hotel, which 
was about 75 feet long by 16 wide and two sto- 
ries in height. 

Here I separated from my fellow-travelers, 
who went into camp, and I took up my quarters 
in the hotel with about 60 miners. The pro- 
prietor was a German named Louis Schonburg, a 
genial host who looked after my comfort in every 
way possible in that country. The house was fur- 
nished with bunks — not bedsteads — and each 
room had one rough stool, and for illumination 
a tallow candle in a miner's candlestick stuck in 
the logs. 

The rooms were partitioned off with calico 
about eight feet high, and as for washing facili- 
ties, they had none. I went down stairs and 
washed with the miners and wiped on the general 
towel. All supplies were exhausted at the store. 
I could not get a yard of muslin or anything for 
towels, so I had to make the best of the existing 



60 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

circumstances. We found about one-half of the 
population sick with the scurvy. 

The house was made of lojs^s and chinked with 
wood moss. The roof was made of poles upon 
which were laid layers of the moss, and then dirt 
was thrown on this moss. 

In the dining-room we had steel knives and 
forks, and rough tables without cloths or nap- 
kins. We ate from tin plates. Our menu was 
bacon and beans, bread and coffee, without either 
milk or sugar, three times a day. For this 
luxurious fare we paid $2.50 per meal and $4 
per night for our bunk. 

I made arrangements that first night to go up 
Bonanza Creek to see a mine. I walked around 
the greater part of the night, the sun being ob- 
scured only a little over an hour during the whole 
time. 

Along about eleven o'clock at night I was 
pacing up and down a board walk between the 
hotel and a row of tents pitched on the opposite 
side. I saw several miners sitting out near a 
large tent talking about the early days in Mon- 
tana. They spoke of Custer's last fight at the 
massacre of the Little Big Horn. 

I found a label from a tomato can, and as it 
was the only available literature in the country I 
pretended to be studying it as an excuse for my 
listening to the conversation. 

The member of the group who attracted my 
attention most was well dressed, sporting im- 
maculate linen and an air of civilization which I 
had missed for months. He was "dressed up," 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 61 

as the miners say, in tailor-made clothes, and I 
fastened my eyes upon him. An Indian named 
"Skookum Jim," just in from the trail, spoke to 
him, and I was astonished to hear him speaking 
the Indian dialect as fluently as he did English. 
He was not only noticeable for his dress, but for 
his personality and his superb physique. Above 
medium height, with high forehead and deepset, 
steel-blue eyes, his chin was square and indica- 
tive of the determination of the man. His hair 
was of a light golden hue, only sHghtly wavy and 
very fine and well-kept. 

My curiosity was aroused as to what this man 
could be doing amid the rough surroundings of 
a mining-camp. A man who I afterward learned 
was Jeff Talbort raised his voice and said, "You 
remember the night you and I and Louie Kabell 
rode into Sitting Bull's camp, and how, when we 
found the trap which we had stumbled into, we 
covered the old Indian war-horse with our guns 
and backed out with Sitting Bull, the old hypo- 
crite, praying for us, saying that was all he 
could do ; but we got out safely all the same. 

"I never heard j^ou talk Indian as you did 
that night, when you told old Sitting Bull he 
must give orders to his men to escort us safely 
out of camp and turn us loose." 

"Yes," said the man in the "Sunday-clothes," 
"that was the time when Johnny Manning was 
sheriff of the Black Hills country. And, by the 
way, I hear Johnnj^ has hit the trail and is on his 
way in. 

"At that time a white woman had been scalped 



62 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

in the Cooly not far from our camp. When a 
white woman was scalped Manning got up a 
posse and went out after the miscreant. Johnny 
was sure white, and the bravest man I ever knew." 

One of the men in the crowd said, "How 
about Jack Crawford, the poet scout?" 

"Well," replied the man in the boiled shirt, 
"the bravest thing Jack Crawford ever did was 
to write a poem on Johnny Manning. It begins 
something like this: 

"Good-bye, you brave old pioneer, 

There never breathed a truer friend 
Than honest Johnny, none more dear 

Where honesty and justice blend. 
We knew you on the wild frontier, 

When savage foe and outlaws, too. 
Were curbed and cowed in abject fear, 

Because to duty you were true. 

"We knew you when your cabin door 

Was open wide to those in need; 
And bounteously from out j^our store 

You gave, that hungry men might feed. 
Ah, Johnny Manning, friend of mine. 

You'll die as poor as Job's old fowl; 
But on the heavenly range you'll shine. 

While devil broncho-busters howl." 

I sat until nearly midnight listening to a con- 
versation which covered astronomy, navigation 
and scientific gold-mining. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 63 

Mr. Staley, with whom I had arranged to go 
up Bonanza, called me, saying it was time for us 
to start into the gold-district. We traveled over 
the only trail there was in the country. It was 
a corduroy road laid upon the tops of a vegetable 
formation called "niggerheads," which were all 
over that country. These niggerheads grow up 
in marsh lands, and are from one to two feet in 
height. They grow about two feet apart and 
are covered with moss. At the base they are of 
good size and come to a point at the surface, being 
surrounded by water and a most disagreeable 
moss formation woven in and out among them. 

This road was built on the niggerheads for a 
distance of a half-mile to the foot of the moun- 
tain that overhangs the city of Dawson. There 
a road, cut through the gravel and ice, wound 
around the mountain for another mile, and you 
arrived on the abrupt banks of the Klondike 
River, which empties into the Yukon River at 
Dawson. 

Here we crossed the Klondike on a ferry, in 
which the primitive rope was used to keep the 
boat in the channel, and struck a corduroy road 
which led up Bonanza Creek to the mines. This 
road was under construction, and after five miles 
we were compelled to step from niggerhead to 
niggerhead, where a misstep would plunge us into 
water up to our knees. 

The distance from Dawson to the camp at 
Grand Forks, a point where Eldorado empties 
into Bonanza and where Upper Bonanza empties 
into Lower Bonanza, was 14 miles. 



64 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

At Grand Forks was a camp of about 200 
tents, and a Mrs. Bell Mulrooney had a tent 
hotel of her own, which would accommodate 
about a dozen people, and where I became a 
guest. In a radius of two miles from the Forks 
where the camp was located the richest auriferous 
deposits were found. The places were known as 
Eldorado, French Hill, Gold Hill, Big Scoo- 
kum, Little Scookum, Upper and Lower Bo- 
nanza, and Dick Low's Fraction, which was the 
richest piece of ground in the whole country. I 
have seen $600 washed out of one medium-sized 
pan of dirt. 

About half a mile below this point, on Lower 
Bonanza, the first discovery of gold was made in 
the spring of 1897. This trip was the worst of 
my many experiences. We were from one 
o'clock in the early morning to ten o'clock at 
night making this journey on foot, and I was 
legweary and footsore when I struck the mines. 

After a night's rest I started to look for a 
gold-mine. I had traveled so far and endured 
so much that I was quite ready to turn my face 
to the rising sun and return to my home and 
friends. But I wanted to see a gold-mine at 
least before doing so. Seeing some men work- 
ing over what I afterward learned M'as a sluice- 
box I strolled over to their claim. They were 
cordial and in a rude way gallant. Thej^ invited 
me to wash out a pan of dirt, but as I was igno- 
rant of the technique I made bad work of it. The 
pan got away from me and turned bottomside up 
in the tub of water in which I was panning. This 



The Tragedy of the Klondike Qo 

greatly amused the workmen. Then one of them 
showed me how to manipulate the pan and found 
a shovelful of dirt. I washed out four and one- 
half ounces of gold, worth $68, and in ac- 
cordance with the miners' customs, I was pre- 
sented with the proceeds of my first pan-out. 

I felt delicate about accepting this gold, but 
they insisted, saying there was plenty more where 
that came from, and at the same time a man 
stepped into his tent and brought out a frying- 
pan filled with nuggets ranging in size from a 
small marble to a walnut. Then he took up a 
riffle and showed me gold as coarse as wheat and 
corn-grains an inch deep in the bottom of the 
box. 

Mr. Staley called to me to go with him a 
short distance to the Berry claim on Eldorado 
Creek, where we saw a big clean-up going on, 
and before nightfall they had cleaned up over 
$60,000. They did not have bags enough to put 
it in, and bread-pans, frying-pans and even rub- 
ber boots were pressed into service and made re- 
ceptacles for this great wealth. 

I stood speechless as I saw this treasure taken 
from the ground at an average of from one to 
four feet from the surface. The ground was to 
be had for the staking under the law, and I had 
a miner's license to stake, which I had purchased 
at Victoria, paying a fee of ten dollars to the 
government. A claim was then 500 feet up and 
down the creek and extending from rim rock to 
rim rock, which was about 600 feet across the 
creek. 



66 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

Even the sight of the gold did not allure me. 
So great had been the hardships which I had 
undergone that to return home was the one de- 
sirable thing in life. 

Had I known how much more terrible were 
the experiences which awaited me than those I 
had passed through no earth]}" power could have 
kept me in Dawson, Yukon Territory of Canada. 
I wanted to stake a claim under my license be- 
fore leaving the country with a view not to work- 
ing but to selling it. But the claims that were 
on the "pay streak" in the creek they told me 
were all taken. On the hillside the only claim 
which had panned out worth staking was the 
Travarra claim on Gold Hill. 

I did not want to throw away my right of 
location on barren ground and I asked a practical 
old miner this question: "How can you tell where 
the pay streak runs?" 

He replied, "Oh, that is easy." 

"Then there are no claims around the Trav- 
arra claim worth staking?" I suggested. 

"Oh, no," he replied; "you see, the gravel 
which carries the gold all slipped into the creek 
except at that point where the Travarra claim is 
located." 

So I did not stake near that claim as I wished 
to do. But some three months after I bought 
a portion of the claim adjoining the Travarra 
claim, for which I paid $4,000. I could have 
staked the whole claim for nothing had not these 
old miners who really knew nothing about the pay 
streak steered me off. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 67 

In less than three months every foot of that 
hillside was yielding big returns. 

On the creek between two rich claims a blank 
was found (that is an unproductive piece of 
ground). 

All over the Klondike this was the case, that 
one claim would yield richly and the adjoining 
claim be barren. No one can tell whether there 
is gold on a claim or not without first prospect- 
ing it, and no one should ever buy one without 
taking that precaution. Gold is where you find 
it, the Bible says. Regardless of the demon- 
strated richness of the country, my resolution to 
return home was not shaken by the wealth I saw 
being taken out of the ground. Through the 
courtesy of Mr. Staley I was furnished with a 
packhorse to return to Dawson. But the animal 
would break through the trail, and it proved to 
be much more tiresome than to walk. As I rode 
into the city of tents and drew rein in front of 
my hotel, I was assisted by Mr. Louis Schonburg 
to dismount, and I noticed my man with the 
store clothes unloading gold in bags, taking it 
into his tent opposite. His clean-up was so great 
that it took seven mules to carry it into camp. 
I asked who he was, and Mr. Schonburg re- 
plied, "That is Edward MacConnell, the laziest 
man that ever rode into a mining-camp. But he 
knows a mine when he sees it, and that dust you 
have and the first you ever panned out came out 
of one of his mines. He built the only trail 
worthy the name in this region, and he built a 
bridge across the Klondike River which cost him 



68 TJie Tragedy of the Klondike 

$37,000 and which went out with the ice a few 
days ago. He now owns and operates the ferry 
across the Klondike. 

"I knew him in Montana when he was col- 
lector of customs in that State. He was nick- 
named by his friends 'Easy Money,' on account 
of his liberality. He bought the first and only 
steamboat built in the country, which was con- 
structed during the winter at Lake Bennett by 
Captain John Irving and named Willie Irving 
for the latter's little son. 

"Mr. MacConnell says he is going to open 
navigation and run boats up the Yukon River 
to the White Horse Rapids. But no one believes 
that the navigation of the river against the tide 
and current is a possible thing." 

I said, "Do not boats go up the river now?" 

"No," said he, "now people come down in 
small boats, as you did, and the scows are broken 
up, as they are of no use once you are in the 
country." 

This was a surprise to me. It never had oc- 
curred to me that I was a prisoner in the Klon- 
dike. Only when the river was frozen over was 
it possible to get out by going up the river, and 
that would be by traveling on the ice. The boats 
could and did come up the river from St. IMich- 
ael's in September and early October, but the 
rest of the time they were ice-bound in the north. 
In the spring, when the ice goes out, there are 
usually heavy rains. For three days it rained, 
and while I was in bed asleep the rain broke 
through my moss roof and drenched me. I had 



The Tragedy of the Klondike GO 

no change of dry clothing, everything was wet. 
We could not dry our garments, and men and 
v/omen went about like drenched rats. For three 
days and nights it continued to pour in torrents, 
and all over the floors of tents the water stood 
two feet deep. 



CHAPTER VII 

WHEN I reached Dawson on my return 
from Bonanza, a period of only two days 
had elapsed, but in that time those who 
had followed us arrived at Dawson, and the in- 
habitants had increased in that brief interval from 
about 500 to over 12,000 souls. Tents covered the 
plains between the river and the foot of the moun- 
tain, and all was bustle and confusion. Just as 
soon as the water receded, a period of not more 

than a few hours, h broke loose in that camp. 

Drinking-saloons of the Red Dog variety were 
opened in profusion, and in them drinking and 
gambling were rife every hour in the twenty- 
four. The sun shining all night as well as all 
day kept the ball rolling, and people would go 
three days and nights without sleeping. 

The miners came down from the creeks every 
time they had a clean-up, and brought their gold 
with them, spending most of it in dissipation. I 
asked Schonburg where they deposited their gold. 
He started to tell me something, but a man ap- 
proached and he shut up like a clam. Finally 
we were alone and he beckoned me into his room. 
He was embarrassed at having a lady in his room 
(at least he pretended to be), and quickly lifted 
the curtain nailed around his bunk and motioned 
me to look. There, in tin cans and sacks, was a 

71 



72 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

fortune. "Over $300,000 under there," he whis- 
pered. 

There were no banks and no safes in Dawson 
at that time, but a man's money anywhere he 
stowed it was safer than in a bank, as future 
events proved. The camp was ruled by a vigi- 
lance committee and governed by miners' un- 
written laws. Any man who stole his neighbor's 
gold would have been hung higher than Haman 
on detection. It remained for civilization to 
bring with it thieves and robbers. 

I remained at the primitive hotel for the next 
ten days. I spent most of my time wandering 
about looking over the ground and sizing up the 
situation. 

Among the recent arrivals were that class of 
immoral women who always rush into a new 
mining-camp, and in a few days dance-halls were 
opened on the main thoroughfares for the enter- 
tainment of the miners who came to Dawson from 
the mines. The women in these dance-halls were 
not what you would call raving beauties, but there 
was a frank exposure of such charms as they 
imagined they had, for they wore dresses ab- 
breviated at both ends, thus displaying their necks 
and arms and their legs up to their knees. They 
were largely Canucks, or Canadian French, and 
they ranged in ages from children 12 years old to 
old women of 60, gray-haired but hopeful. 

The music was furnished by a cracked fiddle, 
and the price charged for the privilege of danc- 
ing with these sirens was five dollars a head. At 
one end of the room was a bar where whiskey 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 73 

was retailed at one dollar a drink, and it was 
customary to buy a drink for the girl you danced 
with, if you did not, as almost all the men did, 
treat the whole crowd. One night there was an 
invasion by a big, rawboned Scotchman with a 
fine load of what he called "whuskey" in his skin. 
He volunteered to dance the Highland Fling, and 
did so, encouraged by the jeers, laughter and ap- 
plause of the crowd. When he had finished he 
shouted out, "Now I want some one to donee 
with, and if you have any one here who can donee, 
trot her out — any old pig is good enough for me." 

There was so much money in the camp that 
everybody was good-natured, and the rough- 
house and gun-plays common to mining-camps 
were conspicuously absent from our lives in Daw- 
son. The life was out of doors and easily seen 
from the streets. The floors alone were of wood, 
and they were roofed and walled in with canvas 
— gambling-dens, boozing-stalls and dance-halls 
alike. 

In about two weeks an illness broke out in 
the camp, and I was called to prescribe for the 
wife of a Canuck known as French Curly. I 
found her in a high fever. It was neither typhoid 
nor typhus fever. It was a new phase of illness 
to me, as the bowels were involved seriously. I 
am of the opinion that the decayed vegetation 
and the moss and the hot sun pouring down at 
noonday upon them brought about a deadly 
miasmatic condition which threatened to decimate 
the town. The victims were attacked as suddenly 
as cholera patients are. In a few days about half 



74 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

the population, consisting of 12,000 souls, was 
stricken, and about one-third of the population 
died. Many of them left no means of identifica- 
tion and are mourned by their relatives in the 
East as among the unknown dead. This epi- 
demic lasted from the last of June until the 
middle of August, when, the weather growing 
cold, the moss was frozen at night, and the sick- 
ness ended as suddenly as it had begun. 

I rented a tent, ten by twelve feet, and paid 
$65 per month for the same. It was of can- 
vas, with a board floor raised two feet from the 
ground. It was directly adjoining the hotel. 
Here I opened an office for the practice of my 
profession. There were two physicians besides 
myself who had come into the country, but both 
of them got the gold fever and went up Bonanza 
Creek prospecting. From one of them I pur- 
chased his store of drugs and surgical instru- 
ments, and hung out my shingle. 

When the epidemic broke out I turned my 
office into a hospital and filled it with patients. 
I put my clothing and everything else I could 
find under their heads for pillows. I had a box 
in the center of the floor to sit on that was my 
only furniture. 

John Rosine, of Seattle, and now a million- 
aire steamship-owner and president of the North- 
western Steamship Company, was one of my 
patients, and lay on that same floor in this rude 
hospital and was "broke to cases." 

For three weeks I never slept day or night, 
watching over and caring for these unfortunate 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 75 

men. I finally got so worn and weary that I 
could not eat. I offered a young man a hundred 
dollars to sit up with the sick just one night so 1 
could get one night's rest and sleep. He de- 
clined, saying he would not stay an hour in that 
tent for a thousand dollars, much less all night. 
He feared that the fever was contagious, and 
hastened away. 

I walked along the board walk and saw the 
people dead and dying in nearly every tent, and 
for the first and only time in my life I became 
absolutely panic-stricken. I felt that I must get 
away from that place, and that soon, or I should 
die myself. But how? I finally decided to get 
into a small boat, of which there were plenty 
scattered along the shore, and float down the 
river. I could not bring myself to leave my dog 
Napoleon behind, and so took the risk of his up- 
setting the boat, knowing from experience that 
if he did so he would land me safe on shore. I 
packed my dressing-bag and dressed for the jour- 
ney. Just as I started to leave the tent I turned 
for a last farewell look around. 

It was midnight. At that moment a Mr. 
Joel, a relative of the late Barney Barnato, 
opened his eyes and spoke for the first time in 
three weeks, saying, "Water, water." I had 
found him unconscious under a fiy-tent and got 
Mr. Franks, the jeweler, to help bring him into 
my tent. I put down my bag to give him a drink, 
intending to go on as soon as he had slaked his 
thirst. But the expression of his large brown 
eyes and the smile of gratitude that came over his 



76 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

face when I gave him water encouraged me, and 
I resolved to stay by them. I then noticed that 
a man named James Smith, of Oregon, who w^as 
a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, was beckon- 
ing me to come to him. He was so weak I had 
to go down on my knees to catch his words. He 
wanted the pictures of his wife and baby, and I 
handed them to him. He gazed intently at the 
portraits, kissed them, reached out and took my 
hand in his, and in a few minutes he had passed 
over the "great divide." 

Father Judge, of the Roman Catholic 
Church, came into camp from the Mission of the 
Holy Cross, in Alaska, about 1,700 miles down 
the river from Dawson. He came up the river 
traveling over the ice. He opened a hospital, 
which he located at the foot of the avalanche 
where the Indians were lost. Here he pitched 
several tents, one 40 by 60 feet, and ministered 
to the sick, shrived the dying and buried the 
dead. This good man did not spare himself at 
any time, and when the epidemic subsided he built 
a church on the spot where the tent hospital had 
stood. He was universally beloved, and when 
death overtook him he was buried in the church 
he had built, mourned alike by Protestants and 
Catholics. 

The gold was plentiful, and yet many a man 
died before he got an ounce or a mine. And yet 
where they were buried the auriferous soil was so 
rich in gold that their graves are decorated with 
nuggets. There was no time or opportunity dur- 
ing the epidemic for questions of creed. Catholics 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 77 

and heretics alike lie side by side awaiting the call. 
At least this must be said for most of these brave 
men that they laid down their lives not for selfish 
reasons, but in hope of some day, soon, taking 
back to their homes the gold which would ensure 
the future independence of their loved ones. 



CHAPTER VIII 

IT WAS Hearing the last of August, and the 
ice had gone out of the rivers and lakes, and 
a grand rush into the country began. Not 
only miners of adventurous nature, such as had 
come in from the trail when I did, but profes- 
sional men, doctors and lawyers, came. The gold- 
commissioner at Dawson opened an office. Judge 
Dugas opened his court. Law and order and 
stealing began as is customary under civilization. 

The first flagrant acts were committed by 
Judge Amie Calixie Dugas. He put men to 
work on a claim on Dominion Creek, and when 
they had taken out the best of the pay-dirt and 
had cleaned up, he took the gold and transferred 
the mine to his son, Amie Calixie the younger. 
The miners tried for four years in I he courts and 
by petitioning the government at Ottawa to re- 
cover their wages, but without success. This in- 
augurated the period of corruption which ensued. 

The ground in the Yukon never thaws out 
more than a couple of feet, even in the summer 
months. The method employed in mining is dif- 
ferent from placer-mining or quartz-mining in 
other parts of the world. The ground has to be 
thawed out before you can get the gold from it. 
Huge fires are built on rocks, and then the ground 
is steamed. Fortunately timber is most plenti- 
ful, and to be had at first for the cutting, so that 

29 



80 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

there was little labor and no expense in procur- 
ing all the timber necessary for this method of 
mining. The dirt in summer was often under 
water, as the melting glaciers poured their water 
into the shaft. Sometimes the water could be 
pumped out; at others they would have to shut 
down the work until the ground froze solid again. 

It was about this time that I first met JNIr. 
MacConnell. I was invited into his tent to see a 
large clean-up, and he was presented to me by 
one Lafayette Hamilton. 

We saw the clean-up, and there was a large 
dishpan full of gold-dust and nuggets heaped up, 
]3ressed down and running over. I was asked to 
select nuggets enough to make me a bracelet, 
which I did, and which I still have. I was also 
invited to go in company with two other ladies 
on the trial trip of the new steamer Willie Irving. 
It took place at midnight. It was a moonlight 
night, and I^Ir. I^IacConnell invited the ladies into 
the pilot-house vv^ith him. He was owner, captain 
and pilot of the boat. No boat had ever been 
above that point, and the first five miles was the 
worst water between Dawson and White Horse 
Rapids. Slowly the steamer gathered headway 
and, graduallj^ increasing her speed, glided up the 
river. The problem of the navigation of the 
upper Yukon had been solved. In a few days he 
took her up to White Horse Rapids. Her pas- 
sengers then transferred to other boats on the 
lakes, and in this way they got out in three weeks 
instead of five months, going down the river by 
St. Michael's. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 81 

This achievement was naturally most displeas- 
ing to the big companies who were then operating 
big steamships on the lower river to St. Michael's, 
thence to Seattle and San Francisco. These were 
compelled (at least most of them) to haul up and 
dry-rot. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE organization of the Yukon govern- 
ment was made at Ottawa under the Lib- 
eral rule about this time by the appoint- 
ment of a council consisting of Judge Dugas, 
Governor Ogilvie, who was acting as surveyor on 
the boundary line when the gold-fields were dis- 
covered; Major Wood, in command of the 
Northwest Mounted Police, and Mr. Senkler, the 
gold commissioner. Two others were appointed, 
but they were honorable men and had but little 
use for the rest of the gang. 

These appointments were made by Clifford 
Sifton, who was at that time Minister of the In- 
terior at Ottawa. From this it will be seen that 
the people in the Yukon had nothing whatever 
to say as to their government or their rulers. 
The^^ collected a roj^alty of ten per cent of all the 
gold taken out in the territory. Later on this was 
reduced to five per cent, but not till the mines 
were nearly worked out and the gold output 
largely reduced. 

The Canadian Bank of Commerce late in the 
summer of the year opened a branch bank in 
Dawson. Up to this time there had been abso- 
lutely no banking facilities in the Territory. The 
bank in Ottawa sent in H. T. Wills as its resi- 
dent manager, and O. H. Clark was the lawyer 
for the bank and the power behind the throne. 

83 



84 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

He was a relative of Clifford Sifton (so the 
papers said), who was then Minister of the In- 
terior. O. H. Clark ruled things with a rod of 
iron. He controlled the officers of the Territory, 
with the single exception of the sheriff, "Dad" 
Eilbeck, who was appointed to his office for life, 
and being a man who was "sure white" in every 
way and one of the best men that was ever sent 
into the Yukon Territory, he declined to be dic- 
tated to by O. H. Clark, who boasted of being the 
"political boss" of the Territory. 

The truth of this statement will be made ap- 
parent by the recital of the facts which follow. 

The personality of O. H. Clark was indicative 
of his over-bearing disposition. Rascality was 
written on his face. As I have said, he ruled 
things with a rod of iron, and to such an extent 
did he carry his high-handed proceedings that he 
walked into the courts and dictated openly to the 
judges on the bench, and so terrorized Avere they 
by him that they did his bidding absolutely with- 
out protest. 

Sent in by Clifford Sifton to do his bidding, 
he served his master well. 

The gold commissioner's office was as much 
under his thumb as the courts and judges. In 
order to facilitate the rascality in the gold com- 
missioner's office no records were kept, as is cus- 
tomary in such offices. After a man had staked a 
claim he would give another man his power of 
attorney, enabling him to do the representation 
work, and go to another camp, or perhaps out of 
the country to visit his family. Every year a new 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 80 

certificate must be issued and an affidavit filed 
that $200 worth of work had been done on the 
claim ; otherwise, in case of failure to comply with 
this law, the title to the mine would revert to the 
government. The power of attorney, in the case 
of a good claim, was taken from the pigeonhole, 
and before the man could get another from the 
owner the title to the mine was lost and the con- 
spirators would jump the claim. This was one of 
the schemes. If these legal documents were 
pigeonholed in a vault they could be removed at 
the will of O. H. Clark. In one case I have the 
positive proof that when Clark wanted a big 
judgment which he got against Edward MacCon- 
nell, a miner, the wink was tipped to the court, 
and when the judge issued a subpoena duces 
tecum, commanding the production of the- docu- 
ment in court, it could not be found, and its ex- 
istence was denied. It was a lease in evidence that 
had been taken from the vault by O. H. Clark and 
held out till after the judgment was given to him; 
then he returned it to the vault again. Many 
cases like this occurred. The American miner sac- 
rificed all his property and left Canada on this ac- 
count, saying he would not invest money where 
fraudulent acts like these i)revailed. 

These frauds and others too numerous to men- 
tion aroused the deep resentment of the miners, 
and they called an indignation meeting in front 
of the Northern Commercial Company's store. 
The miners were called in from the creeks, and 
nearly 10,000 persons were in front of the 
stores. A young politician and miner named 



86 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

Joseph Andrew Clarke made a ringing speech 
condemning the government officials, and he did 
not hesitate to call them liars and thieves. Public 
feeling ran high, and there were not a few who 
counseled violent measures in reprisal for the 
wrongs inflicted on them. At eleven o'clock at 
night they formed in line and started to attack 
the barracks of the Northwest Mounted Police, 
of whom there were fewer than 100 at that par- 
ticular time. 

A big Scotchman, a man past middle age, 
named Colonel MacGregor, nicknamed the 
"Mysterious JMan," called a halt and then made 
the miners abandon their designs on the barracks. 
MacGregor was a leader born and a most popular 
man — a man of good judgment usually, but who 
admitted to me three years after this occurrence 
that he had erred in judgment at this time. He 
was a mystery, since he had no mine, no store, nor 
any known occupation. Later Judge Dugas 
called him a conservative spy on the public street, 
and JMacGregor chased him into his own court, 
where he took refuge in his private room behind 
barred doors. The latter swore vengeance in 
terms "not loud but deep." 

These few facts will give an idea of the con- 
ditions prevailing in Dawson at this time. 

The miners had sent a protest signed by about 
2,000 to Ottawa to the head of the government 
asking that Judge Dugas be removed from the 
bench. The result of this was that while prior to 
this the miners had only to deal with the mounted 
police, a detachment of regular troops was sent 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 87 

into the camp, with cannon and a battery of ar- 
tillery, commanded by Colonel Steele. An arsenal 
was established and garrisoned. This body of 
men were fine fellows. 

Everything quieted down and large perma- 
nent structures went up taking the place of the 
tents. The logs were sawed into lumber by saw- 
mills that had been brought in over the ice. The 
price was excessive, $600 a thousand, and $1.25 a 
pound was charged for carrying it up to the mines 
on Bonanza, a distance of about 14 miles. 

After the petition had reached Ottawa an or- 
dinance was passed forbidding any government 
official, owning mining property. Just previous 
to this time a man was tried for an attempt to 
murder a miner on his claim. He was recom- 
mended to the mercy of the court and the judge 
acquitted him. In the meantime a transfer was 
made by this man of a half -interest in a rich claim 
to a woman. It came to light later on that this 
woman in whom the title was vested was the 
judge's wife. He had taken title from the pris- 
oner before his trial in his wife's maiden name. 

Nearly every government official was rep- 
resented by a mining agent. Fred Burnham rep- 
resented Lord Roberts and left the claim that he 
had charge of on Gold Hill to go to the Boer War 
as a scout for the English government. Captain 
Norwood, the papers said, represented Premier 
Laurier and had charge of several of the richest 
claims in the Territory. 

Fred C. Wade, who was Queen's Counsel, and 
Judge Craig came into the Territory at this time. 



88 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

sent in response to a petition filed at Ottawa by 
the miners asking for the removal of Judge 
Dugas. Dugas was not removed, but he took 
leave and visited Ottawa, being gone several 
months. During his absence Judge Craig held 
court in his stead. 

The camp had now become so healthy, owing to 
sanitary measures, that there was almost abso- 
lutely no demand for the services of a physician. 

"Othello's occupation gone," I was offered a 
position by Mr. MacConnell. He had just com- 
pleted building the Melbourne Hotel, a log build- 
ing three stories high, containing 27 rooms; a 
huge caravansary for that country and which had 
cost him $36,000. 

An idea of the cost of things in that country is 
afforded by the fact that each pane of glass 10 x 
12 inches cost $5; a broom cost an ounce, which 
was $16; a can of oj^sters $25; a bottle of cham- 
pagne $35 ; half a spring chicken, one ounce. 

I weighed all the gold-dust that came into the 
hotel and kept it under my bed. It was left with 
me for safe-keeping by the miners. I have had 
over $2,000,000 in my care at one time. I handled 
all the money of ]Mr. MacConnell arising from 
his mines, steamboats, ferries and the hotel. I 
kept the books, acted as private secretarj^ for sev- 
eral of the miners as well as for Mr. MacConnell, 
and received from him $500 per month. I have 
received from the miners over $2,000 a month in 
nuggets for weighing and taking care of their 
gold till they could take it out of the country on 
the steamboats. 



Tlie Tragedy of the Klondike 89 

At the same time my mines were yielding big 
retm'ns and in a short time I bought the Mel- 
bourne Hotel from ]Mr. MacConnell, paying 
$32,000 for the property. 

Then my real trouble began. Mr. H. T. 
Wills, manager of the Canadian Bank of Com- 
merce branch in Dawson, came to me. He was a 
grand man in every sense of the word. He wanted 
to buy the property for a banking-house, it being 
by far the most desirable property and location 
in the city. He began by offering me $23,000 
for the whole property for which I had paid $32,- 
000 a short time before. I was satisfied from his 
small offer that he had been sent to me by O. H. 
Clark, the political boss. Mr. Wills advised me 
to take the offer and leave Dawson, saying it was 
no place for a woman of education and refine- 
ment. I refused to either get out of the camp or 
to sell my property, especially at any such sacri- 
fice, while the camp was booming as it was at this 
time. 

Mr. Wills was a man of the strictest integrity 
and practiced fair dealing with everyone. He was 
beloved by all the miners. He had done more 
than any one man in the camp to build up the city 
and develop the resources of the mines. Know- 
ing this I was at a loss to know why he so earn- 
estly advised me to leave the place, saying it was 
no place for a decent woman. He told me he was 
going to resign as manager of the bank for he 
could not stand it to see his friends who had al- 
ways treated him fairly and squarely taken ad- 
vantage of. Had I known the meaning of his 



90 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

words and their significance, which he dared not 
make plainer, I should have taken his advice and 
sacrificed my property and left the camp. But I 
had confidence in the government at that time 
and went on to face the most painful and danger- 
ous experiences of my life, and my escape from 
being murdered by one of the gang was little 
short of miraculous. 

A few days after this conversation with Mr. 
Wills the authorities began the erection of a two- 
story water-house in the public street, directly in 
front of my hotel and within ten feet of the en- 
trance door. The purpose of this house was to 
store water in the upper half and keep it from 
freezing by fires on the ground floor. Here the 
people came to get their water supply when the 
thermometer was far below zero, and they used 
the sidewalks in front of my hotel entrance to 
rest their cans, barrels and buckets. Prior to this 
the people had gotten their water by cutting holes 
in the ice out of the Klondike River. An ordi- 
nance was passed forbidding the taking of wa- 
ter from any place except this water-tower and 
a tariff was fixed of 25 cents a bucket. 

Some men who tried to defy this ordinance 
and take water from the Klondike at will were ar- 
rested and sent to jail by the "Organized Ofiicial 
Bandits." 

They claimed as an excuse for this high-hand- 
ed proceeding that the water of the Klondike, 
which had a current of 30 miles an hour at the 
point where the water was taken, as well as a 
gravel bottom and water as clear as crystal, was 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 91 

not fit for use and that they were protecting the 
health of the town as well as filling their own 
pockets. 

They had carelessly put their well dowit 
about 200 feet from the Yukon River banks. 
exactly over the large cesspool used to dump 
the slops during the terrible epidemic, and 
from this hole they supplied the town with water, 
compelling, by "law and evidence," every one to 
pay 25 cents a bucket for the same, till within a 
short time the epidemic broke out again and the 
well was abandoned. They then pumped the 
water for their water-house from the Klondike. 

I instructed my lawyer, F. C. Wade, who was 
also Queen's Counsel and prosecuting attorney, 
to bring a suit to cause the removal of the water- 
house from in front of my hotel, on the ground 
that it was a public nuisance, was trespassing on a 
public thoroughfare and was injuring my busi- 
ness as a hotel-keeper by obstructing egress and 
ingress and the view from the windows. 

The case came up in Judge Craig's court and 
my lawyer elicited the fact that Governor Ogil- 
vie owned a controlling interest in the water- 
works. All the officials denied having any inter- 
est in the water- works and water-house. 

Mr. Wade demanded an order for the produc- 
tion of the books and papers. At first this was 
refused. Finally Judge Craig granted the order 
and they were forced to produce the books, which 
revealed the fact that the controlling interest be- 
longed to Governor Ogilvie, and the balance of 
the stock to his personal friends in the ring. 



92 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

In Judge Craig's decision he said the water- 
house was a public nuisance, and ordered it re- 
moved within a reasonable time — 30 days — or the 
defendant to be held for contempt of coui't and 
committed. 

The forcing into the court of the books of the 
water company and the disclosures of the owner- 
ship of the water-works by government officials, 
led to serious complications. Mr. Wade had been 
a law partner of O. H. Clark, and the firm was at 
once dissolved. This caused a split in the political 
ring, and it was plainly to be seen that Fred C. 
Wade, Judge Craig and Major Wood locked 
horns with O. H. Clark, Governor Ogilvie and 
Judge Dugas (who was sent in again soon after 
this exposure), and a few other smaller fish, and 
were determined to stand firm for the rights of 
the citizens of the Territory. 

In a few days the city council met and the cor- 
rupt ring having the majoritj^ on their side passed 
an ordinance that the water-house should stand, 
thus flinging the gauntlet at the feet of the Can- 
adian Court of Justice. The troops as well as the 
Northwest Mounted Police were a fine lot of fel- 
lows and were in sympathy with the people, but, 
lacking instructions or orders from the govern- 
ment at Ottawa, were unable to interfere in any 
way. 

Knowin this state of affairs and having con- 
fidence in the Minister of Justice at Ottawa, I 
laid a plan of action. I began by first going to 
Governor Ogilvie, giving him facts to which he 
seemed to listen favorably. I suggested to him 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 93 

that the Yukon Council should meet at my hotel 
and I would have Mr. Wade there. I thought 
some satisfactory arrangements could be agreed 
upon to have the water-house removed. He as- 
sented promptly and they all came to my hotel 
the following afternoon. I noticed while they 
were there that there were two factions in the 
council. I was led to believe, however, that 
everything was amicably settled and that the 
water-house would be removed at an early date. 

They adjourned to the street in front of the 
water-house and had barely reached the sidewalk 
when there arose such a row that going to the 
windows I saw that a fight had begun. Some 
young Conservatives got out the following lines 
which explains the whole thing. 

The government newspaper organ was ready 
to publish these verses, but O. H. Clark, lawyer 
for the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and "po- 
litical boss," put his oar in and threatened with 
arrest any one who circulated this lampoon. 
While Swinehart, the editor, "took water" the 
boys had about 6,000 copies like this typewritten 
and sent them through Canada. 



"to^ 



WHO STRUCK "BILLY" 

OR 
THE OPEN COUNCIL MEETING 

The snow had fallen softly, the streets were still 

and white. 
When Ogilvie and F. C. A¥ade met in a bloody 

fight, 



94 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

And all the people stood aghast as clashed the 

warriors twain, 
And not a man but hoped and prayed that they 

would clash again. 

For Wade was known as "Fighting Fred," and 

Bill a Doughty Man, 
An Indian fighter of renown, one of a Scottish 

clan, 
And Dawson stood and shivered as the Council 

met in town. 
And "Bill" eased his suspenders up, and Wade 

took off his ffown. 



Cs' 



My children, t'was a dreadful fight, two blows 

were struck in all, 
They fought with skill at distant range, and 

neither had a fall. 
And "Fred the Fighter" blacked the eye of "Bill 

the Western Gled," 
And "Willy" swears he'll wear the scalp of 

"Prosecuting Fred." 

This street brawl between two government 
officials simply tended to widen the breach among 
the powers. I then saw that there was no longer 
any hope for justice to be had in the Territory, 
and proceeded to carry out my plans already 
made. I accordingly wrote a full statement of 
existing conditions in the Territory and the treat- 
ment to which I was being unjustly subjected, 
and forwarded the document to the Minister of 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 95 

Justice at Ottawa, the Hon. David Mills. It 
took two months each way for my letter to get 
out and the reply to be brought in from Skagway, 
traveling over the eternal ice and snow. 

Meantime the Christmas holidays occurred. 
On the morning of the Yuletide three young men, 
fine big chaps, were on the trail going out of the 
country, bound for their homes in the States. 
They were supposed to have with them about 
$35,000. They were Lynn Ralph, of Seattle, who 
was a purser on one of Islv. MacConneil's boats, 
Fred Clayson, of Skagwaj^ a merchant, and a 
young Norwegian named Olson, who had been 
a lineman for the telegraph company and who 
unfortunately overtook the other two and trav- 
eled with them up the river trail on the ice. 

They had stayed all night at the Minto Road- 
house about half way out. They were now on the 
last half of their long, cold journey on foot. The 
thermometer was 56 degrees below zero, and the 
cold was bitter. 

About ten o'clock on Christmas morning they 
were enticed, or, more likely, driven, into the 
woods up a narrow trail which led toward a tent 
that was pitched in the woods out of sight of the 
river trail. They were all three murdered and 
their bodies put into the Yukon River through a 
hole that had been cut in the ice, which was six 
feet thick at that point. 

They disappeared, and no one could be found 
who knew anything about them. The authorities 
said they had been seen by a policeman going up 
Stewart River to a new strike, and as there were 



96 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

rumors of a new strike on the Stewart River just 
at that time many were inclined to believe it. 

Fred Clayson had promised his mother he 
would send her a dispatch from each telegraph 
station that he passed on his way out. She was 
afraid to have him start over the trail with gold- 
dust that time of year, when it is dark all day 
as well as night. He wired in accordance with 
his promise, the last message being sent near 
Minto, about half-way between Dawson and 
White Horse. After two days had passed and 
no telegram had been received she became 
greatly alarmed, and engaged Detective Philip 
R. IVIcGuire, an American detective who was 
there on some work in Skagway, to look for her 
boy. His sympathies enlisted, he lost no time but 
started at once on the trail. 

The morning of the day after the boys had 
been killed a Mrs. Prather and her husband with 
four other men were going outside over the same 
trail. She going ahead in her dog-sled discovered 
a fresh trail just above Minto leading into the 
woods. With truly feminine curiosity she started 
in to see where this trail led to. The impression 
was that it was a cut-oif around the bend of the 
river, and by taking these cut-ofFs travelers could 
often save several miles. When she had gone less 
than a half-mile on this trail she discovered that it 
led to a small tent in the woods. She could see 
the river only a short distance from where she 
then was and decided that she would not retrace 
her steps, but would make a new trail for herself 
and those M^ho were very close behind her. Tak- 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 97 

ing a short cut she made for the river, and had 
only gone a few hundred yards when she found 
a man, who afterward proved to be George 
O'Brien, with a dog and sled crouched down by 
a tree trying to escape observation. He asked 
her if she was alone. She replied that her hus- 
band and four others were coming just behind 
her. At this he expressed himself pleased and 
soon joined the party, and they traveled several 
days together over the ice. When they neared 
the barracks at Tagish Post this man parted com- 
pany with the people who had found him in the 
woods, saying he would lay up for a few days' 
rest. He then bought a team of horses, thinking 
no doubt he would be free from suspicion, as 
many teams were then hauling ties down the trail 
for the railroad that was soon to be built to White 
Horse. 

Mr. McGuire had by this time reached the 
police barracks at Tagish Post going in and v/as 
advising with the officials who were there about 
the lost boys. George O'Brien was at that time 
nearing the same place going out. The ice was 
getting thin in places. He had succeeded in 
passing all the police stations, of which there 
were many, unmolested, and Tagish Post was the 
last and just ahead of him. He attempted to 
leave the trail which led past the Post and make a 
trail on the opposite side of the river for himself, 
and by so doing pass unobserved. But the ice 
was too soft ; he broke through, team and all, and 
was floundering in the water. McGuire's acute 
mind at once came to the reasonable conclusion 



98 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

that whoever it was he must be trying to evade 
the Post. They got assistance and hurried to the 
scene, pulled the man out of the river half- 
drowned, and took him to the barracks. He had 
been in jail at Dawson till within a few wrecks 
before the killing of these boys, and was let out 
and given a peculiar blanket and ax which it is 
customary to give to discharged pauper pris- 
oners. The Canadian police searched him per- 
functorily and found nothing incriminating. 
Then McGuire, after using considerable strat- 
egy, succeeded in getting permission to search 
the man's clothes himself. The heel of one of 
O'Brien's socks had a patch which had been 
darned carefully, and between this patch and the 
regular sock-heel McGuire found a one-hundred- 
dollar bill that had been taken from Fred Clay- 
son. No other money or gold-dust was ever 
found. 

George O'Brien was tried, convicted and 
hung for this crime. During the trial the evi- 
dence shovv ed this : The three boys walked up that 
trail into the woods, Olson in the lead, Ralph 
next and Clayson last. They were about twenty 
feet apart when they came to a j^lace where the 
timber was large and close together. Here Clay- 
son sprang from the trail for a large tree, jump- 
ing a great distance, and was shot in the head 
while in a stooped position. Lynn Ralph, likely 
hearing the shot, turned to look back and fell 
dead in the trail with two bullet-holes in his body. 
Olson had a hunter's knife which he used in his 
defense. The frozen snow showed this, and that 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 99 

a terrible struggle had taken place between Olson 
and two other men. The footprints were visible 
and the frozen snow was covered with blood about 
fifty feet square, showing plainly that Olson 
had seized the rifle in the hands of another man 
and made a desperate fight for his life. The evi- 
dence also showed that O'Brien was not alone 
with the boys when they were killed. A telegram 
had been sent up the trail to O'Brien the same 
day the boys started out which for some reason 
could not be used in evidence. Mr. F. C. Wade 
prosecuted this case, and his strong efforts to fix 
the crime on others as well as on O'Brien were 
rendered fruitless by influence. 

As soon as the Minister of Justice received 
my letter he turned it over to Clifford S if ton, 
Minister of the Interior, and notified me of the 
fact immediately thereafter. Clifford Si f ton 
sent my letter to the Yukon Council at Dawson 
with confidential instructions how to proceed in 
the matter. I learned without doubt that these 
orders were to bring me to my knees and make 
such an example of me as would intimidate all 
the miners in the Yukon Territory and prevent 
their asserting their rights. After this the whole 
community, of whatever nationality, were to be 
robbed and stabbed with impunity by those who 
ruled Yukon as arbitrarily as the Doges ruled 
old Venice. In fact, as subsequent events will 
prove, the tortures of the Inquisition in Spain, 
save only the rack, were equaled by the officials, 
who not only robbed but attempted murder to 
forward their interest and pay off their grudges. 



100 The. Tragedy of the Klondike 

I had been ill several days with acute pleurisy 
and was out of bed for the first time in ten days 
when I was served with a summons out of a 
police court on a charge of criminal libel. The 
thermometer was 42 degrees below zero, and I 
refused to go to court, and was removed to my 
bed. There I remained for the next six weeks. 
I sent a certificate from three different physicians 
as to my condition, and they were all thrown out 
of court. I then wired to the Minister of Justice 
at Ottawa, asking him for a stay of proceedings. 
To this I received no reply. 

The night following was an extremely cold 
night, the thermometer registering 68 degrees 
below zero. I was too cold to sleep, and I had my 
bed moved away from the window and up against 
a door which opened into the main hallway. 
Toward morning fatigue overcame me and I 
slumbered. I was awakened about nine o'clock 
by having the door near which my bed was placed 
pushed open, and through the opening a man's 
hand was pushed and a loaded revolver, cocked, 
was thrust in my face. The clicking of that re- 
volver awakened me, and the barrel of that gun 
looked bigger than a hogshead to me. 

My first thought was that some one had come 
to steal the gold-dust stored beneath my bed. 

My lungs were sore, especially the left one, 
but notwithstanding I began to scream, and each 
scream seemed as if it would tear my lungs out 
of me. It was quite a while before I could stop 
screaming, I was so frightened. 



CHAPTER X 

THEY continued to serve summonses on me 
daily, but I declined to go to court, and 
kept my bed. The following letter from 
one of the leading physicians of Dawson will 
serve to show my good faith in the matter and the 
persecution to which I was subjected: 

"To Major Wood, 

Commanding Officer^ N. W. M. P., 
Dawson^ Y. T. 

"Dear Sir: I have been shown another com- 
munication from Inspector Starnes in the cases 
of alleged criminal libel against Luella Day. 
His behavior as magistrate from the very incep- 
tion of the proceedings till now has been such as 
to aggravate and prolong her sickness. 

"I have to say also that his extraordinary ut- 
terances from the bench and his conduct through- 
out these proceedings show a want of good faith 
in the administration of his office, besides amount- 
ing to a tacit impeachment of every medical affi- 
davit before his court in this particular case. 

"His communication of to-day ends as fol- 
lows: 'In any case your physicians will have to 
appear in person to satisfy the Court verbally as 
to your condition.' Inspector Starnes came to 



102 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

see me twice on Sunday regarding this case. I 
told him that I would be pleased to attend court 
when summoned as a witness. 

"Faithfulty yours, 

"William Catto, M.D." 

Then a policeman invaded my bedroom where 
I lay ill, and brought a verbal message from 
Judge Dugas saying if I would come before the 
court and apologize, all the proceedings against 
me would be dropped. I refused flatly, saying 
I had nothing to apologize for, as every word I 
had written to the Minister of Justice was the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help me God! 

Colonel MacGregor appeared on the scene 
with Dr. Richardson, of the mounted police, who 
pronounced it dangerous to my life to take me 
into the extreme low temperature prevailing out- 
side. 

Then a guard was placed in the house to 
watch over me, which was changed every four 
hours, until I was sufficiently recovered to be 
taken to the government hospital. 

My friends were extremely solicitous about 
my being taken to the hospital, fearing that some- 
thing would be done to put me out of the way 
and no trace left behind. 

Under these circumstances it appeared to me 
that the most advisable thing to do was to appeal 
to the United States consul for protection. I 
dictated the following letter: 



TJie Tragedy of the Klondike 103 

"Dawson City, Yukon Territory, 
"April 9, 1901. 

"To THE Consul of the United States, at 
Dawson. 

"Dear Sir : I have been summoned to appear 
in the poHce court on the 9th day of March last 
to answer for charges of alleged criminal libel 
made against me by Justice A. Dugas, William 
Ogilvie, Edmund Senkler and Major Z. T. 
Wood, but owing to illness I was unable to at- 
tend at the said court, and the case by virtue of a 
sworn medical certificate has been remanded 
from time to time. 

"On the 4th inst., however, a bench warrant 
was issued for my arrest, notwithstanding that 
a sworn certificate from Dr. W. Catto was in the 
possession of the court testifying to my illness. 
The policeman who had the matter in charge, in 
order to execute the warrant, without a moment's 
warning forced my bedroom door partly open 
and displayed a firearm. Shortly after the de- 
tachment of police already on the scene was rein- 
forced by a squad of Northwest Mounted Police 
under Captain Scarth. Dr. Catto and Dr. Rich- 
ardson, after examination, protested against hav- 
ing me taken to the court that day. I was then 
I)laced under arrest and a guard stationed in the 
house over me. 

"The constant worry in which I have been 
kept ever since the inception of these proceed- 
ings by the threats and actions of the court has 
seriously affected my illness and prevented my 



104 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

recovery. I am a citizen of the United States, 
and I pray that I may receive the protection that 
you may be able to give me in this matter. 

"I will be pleased, so soon as I am able, to 
answer in person to my summons, but owing to 
the condition of my health at present I consider 
by doing so I would be endangering my life. 

"Therefore I appeal to you in the name of the 
government you represent to stay these court 
proceedings until such time as I may be restored 
to health, or have a reply from either Ottawa or 
Washington." 

I received the following answer from the vice- 
consul, H. TeRoller, who was also manager for 
one of the big company Canadian stores: 

"Dear Madam: Your communication to 
Colonel McCook of April 10 has been received 
and referred to me, and in reply would say that 
while it is the duty of the consular officer to en- 
deavor on all occasions to maintain and promote 
all the rightful interests of United States citizens 
and protect them in all privileges that are pro- 
vided for by treaty or conceded by usage, yet we 
are 'particularly cautioned' not to enter into any 
contention that can be avoided with the subjects 
or authorities of the country, and are constrained 
from taking any part in litigation. 

"If, after consideration, we find that an ap- 
plicant for protection has a right to our interven- 
tion, we are expected to carefully examine into 
the grievances, and if the complaints are well 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 105 

founded, all we can do is to intercede for them 
with the local authorities, hut we can go no fiu- 
ther, except to refer the matter to the State De- 
partment. 

"From the foregoing, you will realize the im- 
portance of using every endeavor to meet the 
authorities and comply with their demand as far 
as it is possible to do so, and thus settle in an 
amicable manner all difficulties between you and 
them. 

".Yours truly, 

"H. TeRoller, 
"C7. S. Vice-Consul/' 



When I had finished reading the letter from 
the vice-consul and manager for the "Big Com- 
pany" I sent a private messenger to Colonel 
McCook, the United States consul, requesting 
him to come to me at once, which he did. When 
I showed him the letter Telloller, the vice-consul, 
had written to me he was furious. He said he 
had not been consulted in the matter at all. 
McCook at once took action and all court pro- 
ceedings were called off. 

While Colonel McCook was a dissipated man, 
he was a man of great courage and stood 
up for the rights of the government which he 
represented. 

When the ambulance reached the court-house, 
having returned without me although they had 
been ordered to bring me before the court dead 
or alive. Judge Dugas nearly had an apoplectic 



106 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

fit. This French Canuck fairly foamed at the 
mouth as he pounded the bench and sputtered his 
venomous spittle in a six-foot radius. 

He then issued a bench warrant to Captain 
Courtland Starnes to arrest me within a week 
and bring me before him, adding, "If you don't 
bring that woman here the next time I'll know 
the reason why," shaking his fist in Captain 
Starnes' face. 

All was quiet in the streets for a few daj^s. 
Z\lv. Wade came to see me the morning I was to 
be brought by Captain Starnes before Judge 
Dugas. 

He said, "I think some one is putting up a 
job on me," and he flourished a paper which 
proved to be a telegram. 

A few hours after I had received the letter 
from TeRolIer, the United States vice-consul, 
he called upon me in company with Mr. F. C. 
Wade. They both tried their best to induce me 
to go before Judge Dugas and apologize. But 
I could not do it in justice to myself. I would 
have preferred death instead. If I had made 
any such surrender of my rights as I was asked 
to make, I would not only have done myself an 
injury and sustained a financial loss, but I held 
out for all those miners who were behind me not 
equipped with either the material or the money 
to make a fight against corrupt officialdom. 

Mr. Wade had warned me from the begin- 
ning against sending any telegrams to the Min- 
ister of Justice or writing him any more letters. 
But, woman-like, I had done both. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 107 

•He was pale and agitated as he stood in my 
presence. He took my hand and held it while he 
asked me this question: "Have you been sending 
telegrams and writing letters to the Minister of 
Justice?" 

I asked him why he wanted to know. He 
then showed me the telegram, after having sworn 
me to secrecy. He said, "I think some one has 
been putting up a job on me." 

"Why?" 

"Because the Minister of Justice has no juris- 
diction over this court. It is under Cliif ord Sif- 
ton, Minister of the Interior." 

The telegram commanded F. C. Wade, 
Queen's Counsel, to dismiss all proceedings 
against me immediately, and was signed, "David 
Mills, Minister of Justice, Ottawa, Canada." 

When court was convened Mr. Wade was at 
my house, and when Judge Dugas opened court 
neither of us was there. When the judge had 
worked himself up into another rage Mr. Wade 
walked into court and dismissed all proceedings 
against me by order of the Dominion govern- 
ment. The crowd outside yelled until they were 
hoarse, while Dugas, both afraid and ashamed 
to face them, sneaked out of the back door of the 
court-house and went home and stayed in bed for 
several days — with a fit of spleen. 

The boys of the Mounted Police, who were 
both brave and chivalric, were "white," and they 
did not like the dirty work they had been com- 
manded to do. They had been on guard over 
me for days, and when the shouts told them that 



108 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

I had won out and all proceedings against me 
were dismissed they did not wait for orders, but 
"scooted" out of the back door of the hotel into 
the alleyway and made their way under cover to 
their headquarters. 

The men had come down from the mines, and 
every one in town was in the court-house who 
could get there, and there were something like 
5,000 standing outside. The news had flown 
from camp to camp that something would be 
doing that day, and I always believed that any at- 
tempt to harm me would have precipitated a riot. 

The newspapers had been saying some one 
was "s\Tong. If it was I, I should be severely pun- 
ished; if it was the official ring, thej^ should be 
made to resign at once. 

From this time forth for a period of more 
than a year, under the rule of the Honorable 
David Mills, everything went smoothly in the 
Territory. Mr. Mills was a just man of kindly 
disposition, and under his administration every- 
thing flourished. He overawed the political ring, 
and money for investment poured into the Terri- 
tory from England and America. 

Business of all kinds was active and profit- 
able to those engaged in it, and many public im- 
provements were made. JNIiners brought their 
families into the country. Churches and school- 
houses were built. The railway was built from 
Lake Bennett to White Horse, connecting it 
with the railroad from the White Pass to Skag- 
way. Large sums of money running into the 
millions were sent into the country by English 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 109 

and French syndicates for investment. The out- 
put of gold was not less than $12,000,000. 

But the uncertainty of human life was illus- 
trated by the death of this good man at the end 
of the first year. 

It might truly be said of him: 

"The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind 

exceeding small, 
Though with patience He stands waiting, with 

exactness grinds He all." 

His remains had not been laid to rest when 
the ring rascals started in again on their nefari- 
ous work. I met Colonel MacGregor on the 
street and first learned from him of this bereave- 
ment. 

He said, "What are we going to do now? 
Our friend has passed beyond." 

I said, "Who?" 

"The beloved Honorable David Mills," he re- 
plied. 

I was told he died suddenly as he arose from 
the table after partaking of a hearty meal at an 
official dinner. 

In a few days thereafter a man came to my 
office and presented a note of Mr. Edward Mac- 
Connell's for $14,000, over two years past due. 
The note had been settled and a receipt given 
for the same, saying the note had been lost in a 
fire which had occurred about that time. 

Mr. MacConnell had left the Territory and 
had gone on a two-years' exploring expedition 



110 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

several thousand miles in the interior of Alaska, 
making it impossible to communicate with him. 

The man was a collector for the Canadian 
Bank of Commerce, and they owned the note. 

I had bought the hotel property from Mr. 
MacConnell after the hotel was built, and then 
I took a patent on the land upon which it stood 
in my own name from the government at Ottawa. 

This man did not claim to me that I was 
legally responsible on this note, as I had never 
seen the note. But he did urge me confidentially 
and as a friend to pay the note, for which he said 
the bank would accept $10,000, in lieu of its face 
value, which was $14,000. 

"O. H. Clark, lawyer, and the Canadian 
Bank of Commerce," he said, "now that Mr. 
Mills has passed away, are the government, and 
they can and will involve 3^ou in litigation and 
make it cost you a good deal more than $10,000." 

I had confidence in the government at Ot- 
tawa at this time. I afterward testified to this 
conversation in court, teUing O. H. Clark he 
could not force me to pay this, as I never had 
and never intended to violate any of the laws, and 
I did not owe one dollar in the country, had 
always paid my honest debts and always expected 
to. I told the court I would simply stand pat 
and die before I would be blackmailed in this 
way out of a single cent. 

O. H. Clark then started in to break the 
patent on my land. He began suit to that end 
and served the summons of complaint on me. 

He put a lis pendens on the hotel property. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 111 

and served a so-called legal notice on me to raise 
the hotel a foot higher from the ground. They 
raised my assessment on the hotel from $50,000 
to $80,000. 

About this time the French syndicate operat- 
ing in the Territory offered me $40,000 for the 
hotel. Knowing of the restraining order I said 
I could not give a valid title to the property. Mr. 
De Journal, a French lawyer for the French syn- 
dicate, told me that if I could put the deed on 
record before O. H. Clark discovered the fact 
that he was at fault in his law, and should have 
put a caveat instead of a lis pendens on the prop- 
erty, I could give a valid title. 

The deed was drawn at once in the office of 
the register of deeds, who was also a Frenchman. 
All the clerks in the office were put to work at 
once. Some tale-bearer carried the news to O. H. 
Clark as soon as we entered the office. Presently 
some one was heard running through the hall- 
way. It was O. H. Clark's confidential clerk, 
Stackpool, as pale as a ghost and out of breath. 
He absolutely threw himself through the door 
into the registrar's office. Just as De Journal, the 
French syndicate lawyer, handed me the $40,000, 
Stackpool excitedly threw down a caveat on the 
recorder's desk, saying, "Record that at once," 
Mr. Joureau, the recorder, put on his glasses, 
carefully read the document, keeping his good 
eye on the clerk, then told him he was too late. 
The title to the property had passed from me to 
the "Syndicate Lyonnaise du Klondike"; O. H. 
Clark's villainy had been foiled by the French- 
men's lawyer, De Journal. 



112 Tlie Tragedy of the Klondike 

But while this "ower-true tale" reeks of vil- 
lainy, life had its amusing features. 

I went to my apartments in the hotel and 
turned my broadcloth dress-skirt into a savings 
bank. I sewed the $40,000 into the lining of my 
dress-skirt and covered it with a heavy facing of 
canvas, so that my heels should not wear a hole 
in the lining and let out my treasure. I wore the 
skirt day and night, never daring to take it off, 
allowing no one to know the place of hiding. 

Added to this is the fact that I had shortly 
before taken a miner by the name of Brushe, who 
had been intoxicated for several days, spending 
his money recklessly, to the bank and got him 
to send $800 home to his wife to pay off a mort- 
gage which he had told me was on his home in 
Canada. I wrote a letter to his wife telling her I 
had sent her $800 by draft through the Canadian 
Bank of Commerce. I got tiie draft myself and 
paid into the bank $800. But when she received 
it it was only $600. I went to the bank to report 
this to the manager. 

I stepped into the private office of Cameron, 
the manager, who had taken Mr. Wills's place. 
This man, D. A. Cameron, was as cold-blooded 
as a fish and as tricky as an educated monkey. 
He had left a letter open on his desk that he had 
undoubtedly not finished reading. As I stood 
there waiting for him to step in from an adjoin- 
ing room I noticed the letter was a private one 
addressed to O. H. Clark, and I read it. It was 
giving Clark a severe reprimand for allowing 
another petition to be sent in by a miner asking 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 113 

for the removal of Judge Dugas. He was told 
in few words that if he wasn't heavy enough to sit 
on that community of kickers another man would 
be sent in to take his place. The letter bore the 
signature of Clifford Sifton, Minister of the 
Interior. 

I left the bank without making my errand 
known. For one thing, I did not propose to trust 
any more money of mine to the Canadian Bank 
of Commerce. There had been too many like the 
historic cat, who never came back, and their 
money was never claimed by any one but the of- 
ficers of the bank. 

The bank had done me many favors when 
Mr. Wills was its manager, but at this time I had 
no obligations in the bank and did not owe them 
one cent. 

A few days after, Cameron, the bank's man- 
ager, sent for me. He was all smiles and took 
me into his private office in the bank and into his 
confidence. He told me he was expecting the 
bank's examiner, and asked me as a special favor 
to him to put the $40,000 in the bank if only for 
a few days, till the bank's examiner had gone. I 
told him frankly I had sent my money out of the 
country, but I did not say I had sent out the 
$40,000. He smilingly asked me, "How did you 
send it out?" he well knowing I had not sent it 
out through the bank, and that I would not trust 
such a sum to be sent out in any other way. 

As soon as the word reached Dawson that the 
Minister of Justice had passed away, CliiFord 
Sifton, Minister of the Interior, procured the 



114 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

appointment of a man whom he owned, body and 
boots, to fill the vacancy. 

Thereupon there was a general exodus of the 
officials of the Yukon Territory. Each one gave 
a different reason for making the trip up the 
Yukon River. Each one, like the men in the 
Scriptures, with one accord began to make ex- 
cuse. No matter what the avowed destination or 
the reason for going, I quickly learned that while 
the camp was left in sole charge of the sheriff, 
the officials found their way to Ottawa for a 
grand pow-pow with Clifford Sifton, Minister of 
the Interior. When Sifton took office he was 
said by the press to be a poor man, and now his 
little $5,000 had grown to $3,000,000 in four 
3^ears through strict economy and the spirit of 
thrift. Race-horses, banquets, official receptions 
and general luxurious living at a high rate of 
expenditure characterized his life at this time. 

After a few weeks these official pilgrims came 
straggling into camp, one at a time, except Gov- 
ernor Ogilvie and Fred C. Wade, Queen's Coun- 
sel, who had bearded "the lion in his den," the 
Ogilvie in his hall. One Fred Congdon was sent 
in to represent the Crown as Queen's Counsel, 
and also to gather in the necessary shekels to pay 
a defalcation of some $10,000 to the bank, so his 
choice was to rob Peter the miner to pay Paul 
the banker, or go to prison. A nicer code of 
morals could scarcely be conceived. 

The returning officers received a warm recep- 
tion from the ladies of uneasy virtue who fre- 
quented the dance-halls. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 115 

One judge named Craig, of age and pro- 
fessed respectability, I saw from a window in 
the Melbourne Hotel, which adjoined the theatre 
used for a dance-hall, stripped by the girls of all 
his clothing but a red flannel shirt and drawers, 
even taking off his wig, and in this poetic cos- 
tume, so drunk he could not stand up, with his 
bald pate shining like a peeled onion, he went 
crawling about the dance-hall on all fours — a 
most diverting, not to say edifying, exhibition of 
judicial dignity. 

Major Zachary Taylor Wood was present 
in uniform, and to the credit of the depraved 
inmates in this dive let it be said they re- 
spected the uniform, but not the wearer, for they 
braided his long, dark, glossy locks and fastened 
the ends with chewing-gum until they stood out 
all over his head like a lot of pigtails. Then they 
pinned English and American flags all over him. 
In this condition he arrived at home. 

Everything was hot and still aheating. They 
got hold of an American lawyer, a renegade who 
had sworn allegiance to the British Crown. On 
him they pinned an American flag, placing it 
over his posterior anatomy. A Cockney from 
London kicked the flag and the ignoble part be- 
neath. 

This was too much for the Americans, who 
started a "rough-house" of a pronounced kind, 
and almost every man present wore scars of the 
battle for days. Even Dawson morals were of- 
fended, and the women were corraled in one 
quarter in small cabins, most of them owned by 



116 The. Tragedy of the Klondike 

the government officials, and for which they were 
forced to pay exorbitant rents. So you see that 
so greedy were they for money that they black- 
mailed Cyprians out of their ill-gotten gains. 

About this time a court of appeals was cre- 
ated at Ottawa in and for the Yukon Territory, 
and Judge McCauley was sent in and placed on 
the bench, and he, with Judges Craig and Dugas, 
constituted the court. 

The cases in litigation were tried before one 
judge, and he sat on the bench to hear the appeal 
from his own decision in with the other two. It 
required the concurrence of two judges out of 
the three to obtain a reversal of a judgment. 

O. H. Clark dominated this court in such an 
open and barefaced manner that the people arose 
in open revolt. They started a daily paper. The 
Klondike Miner. The editor of this paper was a 
young miner and a conservative politician. His 
first headline will give the key-note of the policy 
of this paper. 

STRIKE ONi 



Public Peess and Public Servants Defined 



AN OPEN LETTER TO THE FEDERAL AND TERRI- 
TORIAL OFFICIALS IN THE YUKON TERRITORY 
FROM JOSEPH ANDREW CLARKE 

•He began on Judge McCauley, and accused 
him of protecting special-privilege gambling, in 
the interest of the Canadian Bank of Commerce, 
characterizing him as "the bull-con" judge. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 117 

Some two or three gamblers on Front Street 
close to the bank were heavily involved from min- 
ing ventures, and while they knew the gambler's 
art, they were as easily caught with a salted mine 
as a baby. In order to allow them to get the 
money quickly to settle with the bank, for their 
liquors that the bank with their special permit had 
supplied them at exorbitant prices (beer $125 
per barrel), they pulled every other gambling- 
house in town, thus throwing all the business into 
the hands of their debtors and taking the profits 
of the games to cancel their claims. 

Editor Joseph Clarke exposed this nefarious 
business, and men who came down from the mines 
and joined others in Dawson proceeded to raid 
the Bank of Commerce gambling-dens and cart 
the money and chips and paraphernalia off to the 
court and deposit them, instead of using an ax 
on them. The gamblers appealed to Judge Mc- 
Cauley. He dismissed the cases, and handed over 
their gambling-tools to them so they could start 
again, which they did in a few days. 

Joseph Andrew Clarke, in his paper, called 
McCauley a "bull-con" judge, and told how he 
was protecting the gamblers. McCauley then 
sued Editor Clarke for criminal hbel and had him 
locked up. 

By this time Joe Clarke's straightforward 
conduct of his newspaper and fearless attack on 
the bank and judicial rings earned him the friend- 
ship and backing of nearly every miner in the 
Klondike. He was bailed out of jail by the Rev- 
erend Mr. Grant, a Methodist minister, who was 



118 The Tragedy of the Klotidike 

in sympathy with the miners. Joe Clarke de- 
manded a jury trial before Judge Dugas, who 
reluctantly granted it, and throughout the trial 
made every ruling against Joe Clarke to help 
Judge McCauley, his pal in crime. The jury 
acquitted Joe Clarke of the charge of criminal 
libel. Joe Clarke got Judge McCauley on the 
witness-stand and convicted him of perjury on 
his own testimony, and also proved that he had 
protected the gambling interests. 

Through the exposure of the rascality of the 
bank's officers and the judges by Joe Clarke in 
his j)aper, copies of which ^vere sent by him to the 
heads of the government, the officials at Ottawa 
had their eyes opened and took a hand in the 
game. Gambling was ordered to be suppressed 
absolutely. 

In order to get even with the miners O. H. 
Clark, the bank's lav/yer, then started a cam- 
paign of jumping mining-claims, and stealing 
the dust after a clean-up. O. H. Clark also 
started litigation to tie up water rights and dump- 
ing privileges, and generally to do every conceiv- 
able thing to interfere with individual mining in- 
terests on Eldorado, French Hill, Gold Hill and 
Bonanza Creek. A syndicate was formed called 
the "Treadgold," and they forced the miners to 
give up all this location, where the richest ground 
was, to the Treadgold Company. 

The claims of nearly every man and woman 
in the Territory were involved in litigation in a 
few weeks. As an example of this I had a water- 
right and ditch on French Hill which cost me 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 119 

$8,000, and which I had used for two years un- 
molested. I found that this ditch had been tapped 
one night and the water diverted to an adjoining 
claim. When I went to ask by what right they 
had taken my water I was told by a blue-nose "to 
go to court and enforce my rights," they well 
knowing there was no justice to be had there. 

I went to Henry Bleecker, an able lawyer, no 
trickster or pettifogger. He heard my case and 
said, "There is no doubt about it, there is no jus- 
tice to be had and I don't want to take the case." 
He told me how O. H. Clark had stolen a power 
of attorney from the gold commissioner's vault 
belonging to a client of his, and as I had had the 
same experience I was not surprised. 

Then I went to C. ]M. Wood worth, a Scotch- 
man who had for two years fought the ring with 
the courage and tenacity of a bull-dog. He told 
me that it was no use to go into the court, that it 
was a parody on j ustice. 

Woodworth told me he did not want to an- 
tagonize Judge Craig just then, as Mrs. Caulder 
was his client, and he expected a verdict in his 
favor in a few days. Caulder, who was a wealthy 
man owning large mining interests, had died on 
the trail. Frank Belcher was with him when he 
died, and he asked Belcher to administer his estate 
for his wife in Seattle. Mr. Caulder told Belcher 
that his name was on a note for $50,000. Later 
the note turned up in the bank. Frank Belcher 
had asserted that the dying man had told all the 
particulars of this obligation, but when the note 
turned up in the Canadian Bank of Commerce it 



120 The Trui^cdti of the Klondike 

had been raised to $ 1 ()(),()()0. Frank IJelcher, who 
was a robust youn^»- man 28 years old, died sud- 
denly during the lili<»ation. The attending- phy- 
sician said he (bed from aeute pneumonia, but it 
was the opinion of several ])hysi('Ia]is that he had 
been j)ois()ne(l. On this aeeounl Mr. Woodwortb 
refused to take my case, thinking he was going 
to get a judgment in the Caulder ease, but as soon 
as I'rank Ik'leher was ])ut out ol' the way, the case 
was decided against Woodwortb and his chent, 
]Mrs. Caulder. 

This was the last straw, and I decided to keep 
away from the court and let them take judgments 
in lawsuits against me for money I did not owe. 

In one ease to which 1 was defendant for 
money 1 did not ()^\e Judge Craig awarded $200 
more than was asked for by the plaintiff or 
awarded by the jury. lie was severely censured 
for his action in this case by the Dominion press. 

The conditions had become such that the pop- 
ulation Mas rapidly decreasing. Peoi)le who had 
come there in good faith found that they were 
robbed with inipunity, and took what gold, much 
or little, they bad aeeumulated, and sneaked out 
on the trail, glad to get out of the country with 
their lives. A few instances will serve to show 
the worst of the conditions under which we ex- 
isted. 

A woman whose husband worked at night and 
left his money in his trousers pocket, testilied that 
she was chloroformed, and coming partially to 
herself, though unable t(^ nunc, saw a policeman 
named "Big Dick" unlock the door with a key 



The Traced// of Ihr Khmdikc 121 

and ooiric in jukI lake the money Worn Iicr hus- 
l)jiri(rs ))()('k(L Slic vvjis n rospccljihlc innri-icd 
woinnn, hiil, llic /^()v< rnnicnl |)<'i|)(r \\\nx\v sucli dis- 
^raccful iillc^Jitioiis ;i.s lo licr had diara('t(;r, lluil, 
licr luishjind look lirr out of W\c- counliy a, IV^vv 
<la,y,s Ijilcr. 

A yomi/4- man's l)0(ly was Connd ofi the; trail 
al)oiit cijL^lit miles from Dawson. TIic evidence 
showed that he had a icvolvei- in one h;ui(l and a 
pipe in tlie other. His friends lestified tliut he 
never had a revolv<'r, noi- h;i(l he ever used toh.'U'eo 
in any wjiy. lint vvli.'d, lie (hd luive when lie 
started out was $.'J,()()() in /^old-diist, which was a 
^•ood price for a, pipe and an old K""- "''■'^ 
clothes h;i(l heen SMluiMtcd with Jilcohol and set 
fii'(.' to, the hody hcin^- hnrried almost ])cyond 
i<M'o^iiition. Two policemen h-'td met him at the 
road-house ;it dinner, suid at the in<|uest it was 
on their (evidence, that he aeted like a erazy man, 
that tli(; verdict of suicide wms reconled. Noth- 
in/4' more was heard of Ihe /^old. His pjutner told 
me that he had nndouhtedly heen murdered nnd 
ro])])ed. 

A family njuned Hirdsie lived in a cabin. !!(! 
was a miner aruJ kept a (rahin of small dimensions 
Jis a ro<'id-hous(;. 'V\\v. house hin'iied down, de- 
stroying- the nuni arid wife jirid llirce children. 
She was the sister of* a Mother Superior in Vic- 
toria, who wrote to IVTajor Wood, expressing- h(;r 
conviction tluit the!'(; IkuI heen foul phiy. This 
letter was printed also in Canadian paf)ers. Noth- 
ing was ever found out about the author of the 
crime. 



122 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

Mr. Paillard, the French consul, had been as- 
saulted on the public street, by Joe Barrett, one 
of the bank's heelers. The only witness to this 
assault was a miner named Peter MacMahon. 
The French consul at once cabled his government 
the fact. In a few days a man took MacMahoii 
around the mountain to see some quartz. Com- 
ing back he said MacMahon tri}3ped and fell over 
the bluff and his body rolled into the river, whence 
it was recovered some three months afterward. 
Eut an Indian, himself unseen, said the man with 
him had stepped behind IMacMahon, struck him 
with a rock on the back of the head, knocked him 
senseless and rolled his helpless body over the 
cliff. And so another man who knew too much 
was disposed of with neatness and despatch. 

Some men about this time in an apparently 
deserted cabin about 14 miles up the creek, and 
M'hich v.as securely locked, forced an entrance and 
walked in for a night's shelter. They w^ere 
astonislied to find there about 5,000 letters and 
2,000 registered letters. These were addressed 
to people all over the world. In them the writers 
would tell their friends and relatives how much 
dust they had in their cabins, and in this way the 
thieves located the money and went for it. 

I was told by a man who saw some of the let- 
ters that he saw a letter from ]Mrs. Birdsie to her 
sister, the Mother Superior, in Victoria, B. C, in 
which she said that they had $8,000 in dust in the 
house with which they intended to build and fur- 
nish a larger road-house in the spring. Her sister 
never got this letter, of course, but the thieves got 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 123 

the $8,000 — and the family met death in the 
fla-nes. 

A young fellow, Burpee, a ne'er-do-well, 
whose family were respectable people in Ottawa, 
it was ascertained frequented this cabin where the 
letters were found. He was arrested and put in 
jail, but F. C. Congdon, Queen's Counsel, who 
had been appointed governor by Clifford Sifton 
just a short time before, sneaked him out of the 
country, saying as his excuse when the papers of 
Canada roasted him, that he thought Burpee was 
crazy. But it was Congdon's downfall, and in a 
short time he had to get out. The miners whose 
letters had been robbed held indignation meet- 
ings and were preparing to memorialize the gov- 
ernment, when some strong characters warned 
him that he was in danger of his life if he stayed 
in Dawson, and in a few days he got out between 
two of them, and Dawson knew him no more. 

During this time "Big Dick," the pohce- 
man, had been caught redhanded in Rudy Kahl- 
enborn's cabin. He was at his drug-store and 
his wife had gone skating. Kahlenborn caught 
him on his return home coming out of the house. 
He had stolen his wife's diamond engagement- 
ring and a sum of money. 

Sergeant Smith had to lock "Big Dick" up 
for the sake of appearances for a time, but he 
rubbed it in harder than "Big Dick" thought nec- 
essary, and then he squealed on Smith, saying in 
my presence that Sergeant Smith was in the steal- 
ing deeper than he was and that it was only a 
question of time when he would come to grief and 
get caught. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE long, hard fight I had fought alone, 
and the ensuing conditions arising from the 
appointment of these new people, con- 
vinced me after careful reflection that the best 
thing to do for me was to sacrifice my property 
and get out of the country at the earliest 
possible moment. I went up to the mines, 14 
miles by stage-coach, and arranged with the 
foreman to work out the claims, which belonged 
to another party, but which I was working 
under a power of attorney. When I returned 
that evening on the stage-coach from the mines, 
I went into Kahlenborn's drug-store just 
across the street. I asked for quinine capsules. 
He asked me what size, and I told him a dozen 
of two grains each. He said he was just going 
to his supper and asked if it would be satisfactory 
if he sent them over later. I replied that it 
would, and at that moment a man stepped from 
behind the prescription-counter and walked 
toward Kahlenborn, who said to him, "By the 
way, will you please attend to that for me?" I 
looked the man over and at once thought I recog- 
nized him as the man of whose identity I had in- 
quired a short time before, and been told that he 
was the assayer at Ladue's store, whom he re- 
sembled very much indeed. As he approached 
Kahlenborn his hat v/as pushed back on his head, 

125 



126 The Tragedy of the Klondike 



and I noticed a conspicuous scar on his forehead 
near the parting of his hair. I wondered if this 
man had left Ladue and was Kahlenborn's new 
clerk. Not knowing it was the capsules for me 
that he asked him to attend to I left the store and 
thought no more about it, except that the assayer 
must have a knowledge of chemistry, and as men 
of that kind were scarce Kahlenborn had likely 
hired him to help out. 

I sat down in my private room which adjoins 
the reception-room. 



© x R e: e: X 



Bedroom 



Bed 



My 
Bedroom 



Public 

Reception 

Room 



Hall 



Door Opening 
into Hall 



The above diagram will show the arrange- 
ment of the room fronting on the street. 

About two hours later I heard a knock at the 
door, and upon opening it I saw a young man 
named Gibson, a clerk in Reed's drug-store on 
AVater Street, about three blocks away. He 
handed me without a word a small envelope con- 
taining capsules. I said, "I think you must have 
made a mistake. I do not trade at Reed's store, 
but they may be meant for some of the guests of 
the hotel." 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 127 

With that he said, "They are from Kahlen- 
born's drug-store." 

I repHed, "Oh, excuse me, then they are for 
me." 

I afterward remembered what I paid no at- 
tention to at the time, that he made great haste to 
get down the stairs and into the street. 

I placed the capsules on the stand and no per- 
son came into the room afterward. I continued 
reading my book. In about two hours I retired, 
and before getting in bed I took three of the 
capsules. They had hardly touched my stomach 
when I threw them up, together with the hearty 
meal I had eaten a few hours before. Fortunately 
only one of the capsules had slightly opened and 
a portion of its contents had left the capsule. I 
did not remember to have ever vomited before in 
my life when I was seemingly well, and I thought 
it very strange, but explained it to myself by 
thinking it was the result of having taken them 
on top of a hearty and undigested meal. 

I slept well that night, but the following day 
I had no desire for food and ate nothing. My 
stomach was feverish. 

After business hours that night, Mr. Brown, 
the business manager of the hotel, in accordance 
with his usual custom, stopped in the reception- 
room to hand me the day's receipts. While we 
were talking a man named Tajdor, whom Mr. 
Brown recognized by his voice, came in below. 
Brown called to Taylor to come up to the recep- 
tion-room where there was a good fire, as he was 
covered with ice. After Taylor had been peeled 



128 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

by Mr. Brown of the ice gathered on his person 
and his outer garments removed, he stood by the 
fire warming himself and shaking with the cold, 
and Brown told him to take a hot-scotch and some 
quinine and go to bed, or he would be ill from the 
exposure to which he had been subjected. He 
said he would send to Kahlenborn's and get some 
quinine. I said, "I have some right at hand. I 
got them last evening in two-grain capsules." I 
gave him three, and he asked me to give him one 
more, which I did. After drinking his hot-scotch 
and taking the capsules he went to his room at 
once. As he left the room Mr. Brown got up, 
saying he felt as though he had taken cold, and 
asked me if I could spare him a few grains of 
quinine. With this I handed him three of the 
capsules, and he handed me one back, saying two 
were enough for him, and after taking them went 
to bed. 

I prepared for bed, and not feeling quite my- 
self decided to take the three capsules remaining 
in the envelope myself. I then went to bed, and 
sitting on the edge of it my attention was at- 
tracted to a constant running up and down the 
hallway on the floor above. I did not think of 
any one being ill. I picked up the small envelope 
and was about to take its contents, when the 
motion of my hand brought the capsule between 
my eye and the light of the lamp, which stood on 
a stand near the head of my bed. The peculiar 
look of the contents of the capsule attracted my 
attention. I noticed that its contents had been 
triturated, and thinking there might have been a 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 129 

mistake I removed the top of the capsule and 
gently touched the contents with my tongue, and 
finding it to be quinine with its bitter flavor I 
took the three and went to bed. 

Within ten minutes I felt a terrible sensation, 
beginning with a prickling in every part of my 
body as though I had hold of a powerful electric 
battery. At the same time a pain seized me at 
the pit of the stomach. This was followed by a 
violent contraction of the diaphragm, which threw 
the contents of my stomach all over my bed before 
I had time to raise myself up. This consisted 
of a glass of lemonade, which I drank when I 
took the capsules. 

I now heard Mr. Brown and Mr. Taylor vom- 
iting violently in their rooms over my bedroom. 
I knew at once that we had all been poisoned by 
the capsules. I thought it a case of culpable 
negligence, and it was some time after, and after 
other developments had taken place, that I 
reached the conclusion that it was a deliberate at- 
tempt to murder me, and that with a desire to do 
a kindness I had involved Brown and Taylor in 
my unsuspected trouble. 

I heard the voice of Dr. Richardson up stairs, 
and I sent up to ask him to come down and see 
me at once, as I was very ill. He came to my 
room, and I explained to him the circumstances 
and told him of the previous experience after tak- 
ing the capsules. He warned me to say nothing, 
as if these men died I would be in a very awk- 
ward position. I sent the doctor back to his 
patients and the servant down to the cafe for all 



130 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

the eggs behind the bar. The first half-dozen my 
stomach contracted and rejected them. When 
they came up the whites of those eggs were really 
cooked. I persevered, and when I got one to stay 
down and then another, I knew that I had coun- 
teracted the poison of arsenic, for which eggs 
taken in time are an antidote, as they gather the 
arsenic up and expel it from the stomach. 

Feeling responsible, innocently enough, for 
their condition, I crawled up stairs to assist in sav- 
ing the lives of Mr. Brown and Mr. Taylor, and 
remained constantly with Dr. Richardson in 
charge of the cases for two days and nights, until 
they were out of danger. They were not able to 
go out of doors for nearly four weeks. During 
this time passing to and fro through the halls I 
took cold, and the arsenic in my sj^stem served to 
contract my muscles, so that I was practically 
out of existence for over two months. 

As soon as I was able I sent for Kahlenborn, 
the druggist. He denied knowing who had put 
up those capsules. He said, however, if the cap- 
sules that came from his di*ug-store contained 
arsenic, it was no mistake, but had been done in- 
tentionally. He promised to investigate and let 
me know, but so far from doing that he sold his 
drug-store and he and his wife quietly left the 
country. 

I then sent to Reed'c drug-store for young 
Gibson for the purpose of asking him where and 
how he got the poisonous capsules. Word came 
back that he had gone out of the country some 
time before or directly after bringing me the cap- 
sules. . . 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 131 

It ^yas June when I got on my feet agaiii. I 
went on the stage-coach to the claim that I was 
working, expecting the clean-up to be ready for 
me. When I reached there the foreman told me 
that the sluice-boxes had been robbed the night 
before and that in his opinion the dust was then 
in the Canadian Bank of Commerce. 

I had been up to the claim the Sunday pre- 
vious to this, and had seen D. A. Cameron, the 
bank's manager, ride up to my claim. I was 
visiting on an adjoining claim, and he did not see 
me, but I heard him call the foreman out of the 
pit and down to the road, where he talked to him 
and asked him when my clean-up would take 
place. 

I returned to Dawson, and the next day I sent 
a message to Major Wood, commanding the 
Xorthwest Mounted Police, asking him to have 
Detective W^elsh and Sergeant Smith meet me at 
the office of the United States consul to hear my 
evidence in the matter of the sluice-box robbery. 

Shortly before this I had consulted Mr. 
Henry D. Saylor, of Pottsville, Pa., he having 
succeeded Colonel ]McCook as United States con- 
sul. He listened to me and said, "I can do noth- 
ing with these people; it is useless to try so long 
as I am not backed by my government." He 
said he was going to resign. Shortly after, this 
honorable, brainy m.an did resign and left the 
Yukon Territory. The only advice he could give 
me was to mount a fine saddle-horse I owned and 
ride him some 80 miles across the line into the 
jungles of the American territory and thus es- 



132 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

cape the service of a capias for the last fraudu- 
lent judgment which they had secured through 
the courts against me. They had robbed several 
Americans, and then put them in jail and held 
them for judgments obtained by fraud until their 
friends came in and paid them, thus securing 
their release. 

When I reached the consul's office I found 
Thomas JMcGowan, the l^iwyer for the Northern 
Commercial Company's stores, in charge. He 
told me Mr. Say lor had resigned and that he had 
been appointed to fill the vacancy. I found De- 
tective Welsh and Sergeant Smith awaiting me 
as promised by Major Wood. The consul, Mc- 
Gowan, stepped out, but left his stenographer, a 
Miss Butts, to take the evidence. As I proceeded 
with my testimony I told so many details of the 
deviltry going on in Dawson that Sergeant Smith 
turned pale and trembled. I finished my story 
with the visit of Cameron to my claim, his confab 
with the foreman, the robbery of the sluice-boxes, 
and all the evidence which pointed to the bank 
officials as common robbers and thieves. Then I 
asked Sergeant Smith if they had found that 
horse yet that the government paper said Smitli 
had offered a $500 reward for, man or horse or 
both. He replied that he had not heard about 
any horse being stolen. Then and there Detec- 
tive Welsh gave him such a punch in the ribs 
that it nearly knocked him off his feet, saying, 
"Yes, you have heard of it, and you offered a 
$500 dollar reward for it in the morning paper." 
He also told Smith that the dust of the man 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 133 

whose claim was next to mine had been stolen 
also, like-^^dse his horse, upon whose back they 
supposed thej^ took the gold out of the country. 
This was a blind v/hich was engineered by the 
bank's officials to direct suspicion from them- 
selves. I listened until Detective Welsh finished 
his story, and then told mine. 

The man who owned the horse that was said 
to be stolen had told me confidentially just the 
day before that the account of the robbery of his 
sluice-boxes and the stolen horse Vv^hich was pub- 
lished in the government paper was all a lie ; that 
he had been compelled to turn over every ounce 
of dust in his possession to the Bank of Com- 
merce to satisfy a judgment that they had against 
him, and that he was not allowed to hold out even 
enough to pay his men for taking out the dump. 
He also told me that the horse had been hid in 
the woods, and that he w^as disgusted and was 
then about to start down the river in a small boat 
to the American side. He went unmolested, and 
never came back. Both Detective Welsh and 
Sergeant Smith simply stood aghast at my evi- 
dence. Surprise at the accuracy and extent of 
my knowledge of their villainy chased across their 
faces, and they actually trembled. Miss Butts, 
the stenographer, forgot to take down all my tes- 
timony, quitted the machine and leaned over to 
listen, appalled at such an unparalleled piece of 
rascality and crime. 

As I left the consulate I was accosted near 
the door by Mr. John Quigg, from Seattle, who 
was a miner, although he had been educated for 



134 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

the priesthood— an honorable man and not afraid 
of the devil himself. His advice to me was to 
have nothing whatever to do witJi the United 
States consul, Thomas McGowan. He stated 
that McGowan while acting as his attorney had 
manipulated legal documents of his without his 
knowledge or consent in a way by which the 
Northern Commercial Company had taken pos- 
session of his valuable mining property. The 
impropriety will be seen at once of such a man 
representing the United States government and 
a big corporation at one and the same time. He 
was then engaged in preparing papers to have 
his conduct reported t..^ the State Department. 

On my way to uvy hotel I met a Mr. 
Beddo, who said, "Walk up this way with me. 
I want to show you a piece of property." 
He stopped nearly opposite a modern frame 
house on one of the main streets, and pointing to 
it said. "That property cost me $12,000, and it 
is free from incumbrance. You take it for $250." 
I assured him that I would not accept it as a gift. 
He then told me that he wanted to get out of the 
country. Lord JNIinto and David IMills had fought 
the ring, and were just and honest men, but when 
Mills died. Lord Minto could not successfully 
fight the thieves single-handed, and was going to 
resign. "I tell you that Clifford Sifton, Min- 
ister of the Interior, is a black-hearted villain, and 
the government is simply rotten." 

Returning to my rooms at my hotel, I re- 
flected deeply. It seemed impossible to believe 
tl^at such a corrupt ^rovernment could exist in a 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 135 

religious and civilized community, whose church- 
steeples towered to the skies. The result of my 
deliberations was that I made up my mind to 
send to Lord Minto a full statement of the con- 
ditions which existed in the Territory and the 
persecutions to which I had been subjected and 
the outrages perpetrated upon the miners, and 
ask his most gracious excellency for British jus- 
tice. I went into Emil Stauf's real-estate office 
and made my affidavit before him as commis- 
sioner for taking affidavits. I charged O. H. 
Clark and the courts of the Territory with con- 
spiracy in attempting to extort from me $10,000. 
I got affidavits from others whose cases I knew 
of to strengthen the indictment. I got copies of 
the court records in these cases under cover and 
through the sheriff, and was awaiting the next 
mail to send them to Lord Minto at Ottawa. 

About this time Captain Thomas Howard, an 
old war-horse in the Riel rebellion, who was a 
guest in the Melbourne Hotel, where I was still 
staying, and who owned a concession on Indian 
River, had told me it had been given to him by 
the government; that it was his plum which he 
had demanded and received from Clifford Sif- 
ton. Minister of the Interior. The concession had 
prospected well, and he had been offered $240,000 
for the property, which, as he told me, the gov- 
ernment wanted him to turn back, but, said he, 
"I will never do it." One morning he made ready 
and started in a two-horse conveyance to his 
property in company with Captain Norwood, 
who was representing ^Ir. Laurier, Prime Min- 
ister of Canada, in the mines, and a strange man 



136 TJie Tragedy of the Klondike 

who Howard told me was represented to him as 
being a civil engineer. They wanted him to point 
out the boundary lines of his property, and had 
promised him the money as soon as the convey- 
ance could be arranged. 

It was about sixty miles from Dawson to the 
Indian River concession, which lay in the interior 
of the Territory. When he had been gone less 
than forty-eight hours he returned alone, and 
came into my office in the hotel. He seemed very 
much agitated about something. I said to him, 
"Captain, you surely have not been to Indian 
River and back so soon?" 

He replied, "No. I want to tell you some- 
thing. I think those people were taking me out 
there to kill me. I did not like the looks of that 
strange man, and do not believe he is a civil en- 
gineer." 

I told him surely it could not be so bad as that. 

He replied, "Ah, I am older than you are and 
am on to all such tricks. I got suspicious and 
came back, leaving them at a road-house." 

In about three weeks Captain Thomas How- 
ard received a telegram saying if he could come 
to the Russ House, in San Francisco, the deal for 
his concession could be consummated. I saw the 
telegram. He went forthwith. He landed safely 
at the Russ House, and shortly after, one even- 
ing, stepped out of the hotel lo call upon a young 
physician who he told a friend had just come 
from Dawson. He was never seen alive again. 
His dead body was found in an alley behind a 
livery-barn two miles away from the Russ House. 



CHAPTER XII 

AT this time I had about recovered from the 

r\ effects of the attempt to poison me with 

arsenic, and was in my usual good health. 

My height was five feet six inches, and my weight 

was 168 pounds; and I was in my 38th year. 

On the evening of the seventh of July, the 
mail being due to go out on the following after- 
noon, I retired at my usual hour and went to sleep 
almost as soon as my head touched the pillow. 
Between two and three o'clock A. M. I found 
myself trying to call Eddie Fahey, the night 
clerk. I smelled strongly of chloroform and was 
so much under the influence of it that I could 
hardly get out of bed and stand on my feet. 
When I put my hand on the f o:: robe I found it 
wet near my chin. I made my way to the door 
with difficulty and rang the bell, and the night 
clerk came. I unbolted and unlatched the door. 
The bolt was a stout one for obvious reasons. 

I asked Eddie if he was using any chloroform 
liniment, and he said no and that he had none in 
his possession. I then told him to look through 
the rooms and see if any one had been using it, 
as they must have left the cork out of the bottle. 
He did so and reported to me that the only place 
he smelled it was as it came out of my room. By 
this time I had recognized, as I was a physician, 
the coming upon me of a chloroform chill. I sent 



138 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

Eddie Fahey for Mrs Hammell, my nearest 
neighbor, and then for Dr. Richardson. Mrs. 
Hammell came at once, but Dr. Richardson was 
out on a case and could not be found. He then 
went for Dr. Sutherland. PI is wife told him the 
doctor, who was only a young physician, had gone 
to the United States on professional business, and 
that he would be back just as soon as he could 
make the journey, which took about three weeks. 
She volunteered to send a doctor, and sent her 
husband's partner, Dr. Arthm- F. Edwards. He 
was physician to the government and had charge 
of a hospital. Dr. Sutherland got back in three 
weeks. 

In the course of half an hour he came into 
the hotel and into my room. He placed his hat 
on a stand near the door and pulled his hair down 
over his brows. His swarthy complexion, flat 
nose and jet-black Van Dyke beard showed more 
than a trace of Indian blood. He came over and 
said, "Well, what's the matter?" in a gruff voice. 
He sat down on the side of the bed, and Mrs. 
Hammell was standing at the foot of the bed 
watching me. All this time I w^as scanning his 
face and feeling almost sure that he was the man 
I had seen in the drug-store the night the pois- 
oned capsules were put up and sent to me and 
which so nearly ended three lives. 

"What is your name?" I said. 

He replied, "My name is Dr. Edwards," and 
taking a capsule from his vest-pocket was in the 
act of giving it to me. I kept thinking all this 
time, This must be the same man. As he pre- 
sented the capsule I pushed the hair off his brow 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 130 

with a quick movement, and as I had expected 
there was the tell-tale scar on his forehead. He 
jumped back and began angrily pacing the floor. 
I said to Mrs. Hammell, "I don't think I need 
any medicine. Won't you please send down stairs 
and get me a strong cup of coffee?" 

At this he seemed greatly offended and repri- 
manded me for sending for him in the night and 
then refusing to take his medicine. I asked his 
pardon for refusing the capsule. He seemed so 
much offended that I thought I must be mistaken 
in the man after all. I said, "You know, doctor, 
that I am a physician myself, and we doctors 
never like to take medicine if we can avoid it." 

He said, "If you wanted a cafe man why 
didn't you send for one and not waste my time by 
sending for me at any such hour?" 

I said, "Doctor, can't you give me something 
hypodermically to quiet my stomach?" 

"Yes," he said, "I can." 

I sent Eddie for a glass of water and said, 
"Here, doctor, you can prepare it here on this 
little table at my bedside." 

He continued to pace the floor as though in a 
deep study. When Eddie brought the water he 
took a small morocco hypodermic case out of his 
vest-pocket, and then from a glass tube he took 
a small tablet which he said was, and I recog- 
nized it to be, one-eighth grain morphine and one- 
sixteenth grain atropine, which he gave me. He 
then left the room. Mrs. Hammell went home, 
leaving me feeling much relieved, as it quieted 
my stomach. 



140 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

As soon as they were gone I called Eddie and 
said, "Who was that man?" 

He said, "I don't know, I never saw him be- 
fore." 

I said, "I think that man was Ladue's assay er 
and the man who figured as Kahlenborn's new 
clerk in the drug-store where I got the capsules." 
I told Eddie to go and get Jack jMcNeeley, the 
proprietor of the cafe, as I felt sure he would 
know him. 

Jack came up and assured me that the man was 
Dr. Edwards, who was the candidate for member 
of the Yukon Council (they had got representa- 
tion in the Territory by this time) at the election, 
against Cresswell, the people's candidate. It was 
decided a tie between the two candidates. O. H. 
Clark, political boss, had the deciding vote. Of 
course, Cresswell v/as counted out, giving the 
office to his man, Dr. Edwards. 

I was puzzling my brain as to what could be 
Dr. Edwards's motive in attempting my life, as 
I had never seen him to know him, when one of 
my regular physicians and friends dropped in to 
say goodbye, having heard I expected to leave 
the country in a few days. He asked me plainly, 
"Did you ever find out about those capsules?" 

I said, "No, but I shall always think it was 
the mistake of the druggist." 

He told me then that if I would promise not 
to use his name in the matter, he would tell me 
something. I replied, "Go ahead. What is it 
you know?" 

He said, "I understand Dr. Edwards put up 
the capsules." 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 141 

At that I said, "My goodness, doctor, you 
don't suppose that any physician who had taken 
the Esculapian oath, as I had done, would do 
such a thing, and particularly to another phy- 
sician?" 

As I said this he jumped to his feet and grab- 
bing up his hat left the room, saying, "Oh, no, 
no," as he left, "but he might tell you what he 
did with them after he prepared them and how 
they came to be delivered by young Gibson in- 
stead of Kahlenborn's own clerk." 

After a while I sent for JNIrs. Hammell, and 
for the first time told her the exact story of the 
capsules at the time all three of us were sick. 

"Do you suppose that Edwards would do a 
thing of that kind?" I asked. 

"Oh, no, no, because he is a prominent mem- 
ber of the Presbyterian Church." 

It was about half past nine o'clock of the 
morning after he had been there at three A. M. 
when I sent for him and asked Mrs. Hammell to 
remain to witness the conference. I had eaten a 
hearty breakfast ( notwithstanding my misadven- 
ture) sent me from the cafe, and had been up 
and around my room and the halls of the hotel. 
I was dressed in my broadcloth skirt slipped on 
over my fancy nightdress with elbow flowing 
sleeves. 

I sat in the bed while I ate my breakfast, as 
had been my usual custom when the mornings 
were cold, and was talking with Mrs. Hammell 
when from the window we saw Dr. Edwards com- 
ing. He met Dr. Strong, the veterinary surgeon 



142 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

for the government, and after talking a few mo- 
ments they crossed the street and disappeared in 
Dr. Strong's office. In about fifteen minutes we 
heard him coming up-stairs. He came in and, as 
l)efore, put his hat on the stand by the door. As 
he came into the reception-room he gave me one 
sharp glance, as I sat in the bed in the adjoining 
room. He did not speak to me, but crossed the 
room and exchanged a few words with Mrs. 
Hammell, who was also in the reception-room. 

Having done this he started into my bedroom. 
He stopped immediately under the arch; he 
seemed engaged in an argument with himself. 

He was deadly pale and excited, controlling 
himself with an effort. As he stood there I sav/ 
that his right and left arms were held tightly at 
his side, the left hand open and the right one 
closed over something, as if to conceal it, the 
thumb projecting. As he stood there he had the 
look of a guilty man, and the conviction was 
forced on me that I had not been mistaken, and 
that he was both a villain and a coward who would 
attack a woman. I thought quickly, I must not 
show that I am suspicious of him, so I will smile 
and say pleasantly, "Good-morning, doctor," 
which I did. He did not reply to my greeting; 
he turned his head and his eyes swept the room to 
see how far Mrs. Hammell was from him and her 
point of view. He gathered himself together and 
took three steps, which brought him close up to 
my bedside where I was sitting. I said, "Doctor, 
I do not need any hypodermic, but I want to ask 
you something." The expression of his face was 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 143 

indescribable. Mrs. Hammell followed him in 
and stood at the foot of the bed, her right hand 
resting on it. We were for a few seconds look- 
ing into each other's eyes, then his mouth closed 
tight, his nostrils expanded, his forehead went 
up and the pupils of his eyes dilated extraor- 
dinarily. Then he disclosed the hypodermic sy- 
ringe in his right hand. Standing over me he 
made a vicious stab at the fleshy part of my arm. 
I was too quick for him and dodged, but the 
needle entered the back part of my forearm near 
]iiy wi'ist. I felt the contents of the syringe, 
M hich was seemingly about half loaded. It was 
leaking as the needle had struck the muscular por- 
tion of the arm and would not work well. I in- 
stantly yerked the needle out and attempted to 
bite out the grape-like protuberance which im- 
mediately swelled up on my arm, and I tasted 
Fowler's solution of arsenic. 

He vv as trembling like an aspen leaf ; he shook 
from head to foot. He grabbed his hat and 
passed through the open door into the hall. He 
paused a second at the head of the stairs and 
looked back at me, expecting no doubt to see me 
fall back dead, and then plunged down the stair- 
case. I knew Fowler's solution of arsenic was 
the main ingredient in the liquid he had injected 
into my veins, but subsequently other symptoms 
developed which showed that the liquid contained 
cyanide of potassium also. I was sure I was rir.iit 
in recognizing the large syringe used by Dr. 
Strong, the veterinary surgeon, on horses with 
the glanders, and which he had shown me a short 



144! The Tragedy of the Klondike 

time before when I consulted him about a favorite 
horse of mine. 

Oh, the horror of it! Oh, the inhumanity of 
it! Oh, the brutality of it! It was worse than 
any torture inflicted by the most savage Indians 
on the early settlers. The Spanish Inquisition 
was more merciful, though ruder. 

Here was a citizen, physician and official of 
Great Britain under the flag of St. George, mur- 
dering a woman in perfect health and in the prime 
of life, innocent of any crime, helpless and alone, 
by scientific methods of torture. The fire was 
flowing through my veins, my eye-sight grew 
dim and for five hours I was wholly blind. I 
knew that the faithful clerk Eddie was in the 
room sitting quietly, thinking I was asleep, but 
he could do nothing but sit by and watch and 
wait ! Eddie had gone up to his own room for a 
short time and was there during Dr. Edwards's 
crime; when he came down, he found me, as he 
supposed, sound asleep, and moved about noise- 
lessly so as not to waken me. 

As Dr. Edwards hurried out of the room I 
threw up my hands and exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. 
Hammell, they've got me at last!" She followed 
him down the stairs, calling to him. He stopped 
at the bottom and motioned her to follow him 
down. She said, "Doctor, what does this mean?" 
He replied excitedly, "That woman uj) there has 
heart disease, and you had better go right home 
for she will be dead in a few minutes and you 
might get into trouble." 

About ten seconds after the fluid entered my 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 145 

circulation I felt a creeping sensation through 
all my veins like a fly crawling on the forearm. 
The heart seemed to enlarge to an enormous size 
so suddenly and forcibly that it nearly jerked me 
off the bed; then it contracted as suddenly and 
forcibly as it had expanded. All the muscles in 
my body were in a constant quiver. The burning 
of the heart and lungs was agonizing. It seemed 
impossible to endure this suffering for one hour. 
Although I was unable to speak, my brain was 
working overtime. I remembered learning at my 
medical lectures that if I could live for five hours 
I might have a chance for my life from the effects 
of the poison. But now that I felt sure that sy- 
ringe and needle were the ones I had seen in the 
possession of Dr. Strong, the veterinary surgeon, 
I did not see how I could escape blood-poisoning 
from the needle. Then it seemed that the inocu- 
lation of the glanders would not be complete 
under 21 days, at which time I was sure to be in 
the worst stages of blood-poisoning. It did not 
seem possible from my medical experience for me 
to survive under these conditions. 

The events of my life passed in a rapid pano- 
ramic series of pictures through my mind. I saw 
the faces of my friends back in the East, the 
events of my early life and girlhood, the adven- 
tures by sea and land on my journey into the 
Klondike on foot and by water, the persecutions 
to which I had been subjected and the injuries in- 
flicted upon me; and here I was alone, deserted 
by all, even those I had nursed upon the trail and 
in my cabin during the deadly epidemic, and I 



146 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

thought, Great Heavens! what a dreadful death 
to die. Then came before me as if in the Toom 
all the smiling faces of the friends and relatives 
that had passed beyond, and their hands beckoned 
me as if inviting me to join them. Faithful 
Eddie sat by my side, the only one, and I could 
not speak to ask the time. The hours dragged 
by with leaden feet, and each of them seemed a 
century. I kept up my efforts to speak without 
avail until at last I got Eddie to understand the 
words, "What time is it?" 

"It is three o'clock," he replied. 

The five hours were passed and another chance 
for life was given me. I told Eddie to go in next 
door and ask Mrs. Hammell to come in and see 
me. He returned with the information that she 
had gone up Bonanza Creek to her claim. Then 
I sent to the hospital for Dr. Barrett, and he was 
not to be found at the hospital nor at his office. 
No other physician could be found. It seemed 
they had all evaporated. A night passed slowly ; 
for eight hours my veins seemed filled with molten 
lead and my lungs and other organs felt as if 
they were being roasted over a "quick" fire. My 
heart was contracted until it quivered and lost its 
rhythm; there was a constant tremor of all my 
organs, and this was perceptible in my legs and 
arms, whose action was visible. This lasted for 
nearly 24 hours. 

At the end of this time at about 2 P. M. Dr. 
Barrett ^valked in, and he was followed into the 
room by I\Irs. Hammell. I talked privately with 
]^r. Barrett and told him my whole story. He 



The. Tragedy of the Klondike 147 

and T "both' realized that it was as much r. ; his 
position was worth to openly treat my case, but 
he was very kind, saying, "If this had been put 
into your stomach, I could help you now, but as 
it was an injection I can do nothing." He added, 
"I have always considered you a perfect specimen 
of physical womanhood. I think now you will 
pull through all right." He advised me to eat 
no solid food, but to drink all the buttermilk 1 
could, and get up as soon as possible and move 
around the house. 

This abortive attempt to assassinate me so 
alarmed the guests of the hotel that every one left 
with the haste with which rats desert a sinking 
ship, and they were followed at once by the serv- 
ants. Most of them also left the country. One 
of the partners in the restaurant attached to the 
hotel, Jack Farr, of Seattle, took his wife and 
child and returned to Seattle, not waiting to dis- 
pose of his interest in the business, but giving to 
his partner McNeeley his interest in the business. 

Jack Farr told me that he was afraid to stay 
in the country and advised me to get out just as 
soon as I was able. So saying he turned his face 
toward home. 

That night I called to Eddie at about ten 
o'clock to bring me a lamp. I was restless and 
could not sleep, and he was sleeping on a couch 
in the reception-room adjoining my bedroom. He 
came at once with the light, and I examined my 
left arm closely, where the needle had pene- 
trated the forearm, and which was a large hole, 
showing it was not a regular practitioner's needle. 



148 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

Out of this hole a bloody serum was exuding, and 
my arm was discolored and swollen to the shoul- 
der. The glands involved were paining me 
frightfully. I sent for Mrs. Hammell, and she 
kept hot compresses on my arm all night. The 
next afternoon I succeeded in getting a profes- 
sional nurse, a Mrs. Muir, and she stayed with 
me daytimes, but would not stay nights, as she 
was afraid. Eddie stayed nights, and we lived 
behind bolted and barred doors. This monoton- 
ous existence lasted for 20 days and nights. 

I had before me 18 days longer of this pain- 
ful suspense with nothing to do but to commune 
with my thoughts, and I can assure you it was a 
frightful ordeal. I had a raging fever all the 
time. I lived on the buttermilk diet, and grad- 
ually grew so weak I could not rise up out of the 
bed. I could talk and think of nothing else but 
that man, with his horse hypodermic syringe and 
the chances of my having the glanders. Dr. Bar- 
rett said he did not think the horses had the glan- 
ders, but Strong, the veterinary, had assured me 
that it was glanders and not "pink-eye," as Dr. 
Barrett suggested. In that condition I could 
only await the coming of the 21st day. During 
this period my case was widely discussed, until 
by order of the government the police warned 
people not to mention it under penalty of arrest. 

Dr. Edwards was missing from Dawson, and 
no attempt was made to apprehend him. 

I sent, while awaiting the result, a dictated 
letter to Governor Congdon, who wrote me to 
send for Major Wood and lay my grievances 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 149 

before him. I did so, when an officer was sent to 
me teUing me that Governor Congdon was the 
man to lay my complaint before. 

I then dictated a letter to Sheriff Eilbeck for 
protection, explaining that the nurse would not 
stay nights and the boy Eddie was worn out with 
his long vigil, and I did not feel safe, although 
he never left the room night or day, and Jack 
McNeeley was serving his meals up there in the 
reception-room. 

The sheriff wrote me he had no jurisdiction, 
but that he would under the circumstances fur- 
nish me with a guard, which he did, and which 
was changed every four hours. The rear en- 
trance was closed securely, and ingress and egress 
through the front door denied to every one who 
could not give a satisfactory reason for entering 
the premises, which were closed to guests. 

The villainy extended to the government 
newspaper. It stated that the assassin. Dr. Ed- 
wards, had left Dawson for Skagway to attend 
and act as chairman of the Arctic Brotherhood 
convention. As a cap sheaf to this his departure 
was described, where friends and the citizens and 
a band of music made his trip a memorable one. 
Every word of this story was an egregious lie, 
as he was at that moment in hiding in the woods 
near the smallpox hospital. 

I was at this time advised to send a telegram 
to Lord Minto. I dictated and sent the following : 

"To Lord Minto, Governor General of Ot- 
tawa, Canada. An attempt made to murder me; 
all assistance from officials refused ; send relief at 
once. Dated July 28, 1903." 



150 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

Meantime I was holding my own very well; 
so my nurse said, although I was \^dthout medical 
attendance or any medicine saving the buttermilk 
which as a physician I was satisfied was the very 
best medicine I could have taken under the con- 
ditions and with my veins filled with poison. I 
felt much easier in my mind since I was Hearing 
the 21st day, the first period of inoculation, but 
this self -congratulation was of brief duration, for 
that same night I was suddenly seized with a 
peculiar sensation in the frontal sinus, that part 
of the forehead which lies over and between the. 
eyes, and which extends down into the cartilage 
of the nose. I felt as if a medico-electric battery 
was pressing on that portion of the bone referred 
to. The only relief I could get was from the 
pressure of the nurse's fingers placed firmly on 
the seat of the pain, and in this way I managed 
to get a little rest. About six in the morning of 
the 21st day I began to sneeze and vomit. I then 
sent at once for Dr. Barrett, who came over, and 
when he entered my room, he stopped, looked me 
over and shook his head. I interpreted this to 
mean that he had been encouraging me. I was 
right, and I was really inoculated with glanders ; 
the fatal needle had told its tale, and as in all 
ages "murder will out." 

I was expectorating quarts — by that I don't 
mean pints or less — of a peculiar mucus which 
was in substance like the white of effsfs which had 



'^^.■->' 



been beaten to a foam stiff enouo-h to stand alone. 



in' 



It was mixed with a tint of g-reen. The white was 



is' 



so white that it would have made snow look dark- 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 151 

colored. Every physician in Dawson (four 
others) was at this time in attendance, and all 
agreed they had never seen anything like it and 
were at a loss to account for it. All were agreed 
however that whatever it was it came from my 
glands. Naturally I was frightened and de- 
manded of Dr. Barrett if I hadn't a chance. He 
replied, "I think your strong constitution will 
throw it off, if you keep up your courage." 

Dr. Barrett then left, while the others re- 
mained in the room. Dr. Thompson asked me 
what I would like to have done with Dr. Edwards. 
I replied I would like to have him brought back 
and make him tell who hired him to murder me. 
In a few moments Dr. Catto, the Scotchman, be- 
gan laughing immoderately. The other doctors 
looked at him in astonishment, and I was inclined 
to be offended. I asked him what there was 
funny in a case like mine. 

"Why!" he almost shouted, "to think of what 
they did to you and you would not die. Vou're 
going to get well, and if they shoot at you you'll 
catch the bullets in your hand." 

Dr. Barrett's opinion was that if the needle 
was infected with glanders virus I would have 
died inside nine days. Dr. Willis Everett was 
an American scientist who was in the country 
for the Smithsonian Institution. He differed 
firmly but politely, saying that the solution, which 
undoubtedly contained Fowler's solution of 
arsenic and cyanide of potassium, would kill the 
germ of glanders. 

This discharge from the glands continued 



152 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

until the 28th day, when it ceased, and the 
strength which had sustained me on a diet of 
buttermilk only gave out. The crisis of the blood- 
poisoning was reached; my fever left me and 
then I collapsed. I was unconscious for nearly 
24 hours. 

Then with the kindlj^ attention of my nurse 
and my physicians the tedious journey back to 
health was undertaken. Two months from the 
day of the assault I essayed to leave my bed, but 
was astonished to find how weak I was. The 
tendons of my lower limbs were almost powerless. 
I lived on bread and buttermilk and strong soups, 
and it was weeks before I could take, retain and 
digest a particle of solid food. I had lost during 
this time 48 pounds of flesh, and while I could 
stand up, I could not pick nw feet up, and so had 
to shuffle along and hold onto the furniture. In 
the street I used a stick, and would sometimes 
lose my equilibrium and stagger like a drunken 
sailor. 

The first day I was placed on the porch to 
enjoy a sun bath several things happened. 
Charley Thebo came to see me and brought the 
news of the street. He told me that an investi- 
gation committee had reached Dawson from 
Ottawa. Whether this was in response to my 
telegram, the receipt of which had been briefly 
acknowledged by wire but nothing more, or to 
the numerous petitions for an investigating com- 
mittee sent to Lord Minto by the miners, I never 
found out. He also told me that Dr. Edwards 
had been seen on the streets the previous night, 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 153 

having left his hiding-place. Thebo assured me 
that the authorities would take care of Dr. Ed- 
wards, because the investigating coiimiittee was 
in, and I had nothing to fear henceforth. The 
guards had been removed from my house and 
Eddie and myself were there alone. 

Dr. Everett had warned me not to eat a 
mouthful of food except that prepared and 
served by Jack McNeeley, and to place extra 
bolts on the doors, and he personally directed the 
nailing of heavy boards over the transoms of the 
two doors leading from the hallway into my 
rooms. He said, "From this time forth nobody 
can protect you but yourself, and my advice to 
you is to get out of the country at the earliest 
possible moment." He also particularly warned 
me not to go to sleep at night, but to sit up as 
long as I could, while Eddie slept, and then I 
could sleep in the daytime while Eddie watched. 

That same night as I was lying quietly on my 
bed resting, but as wide awake as a weasel, I fan- 
cied I heard footsteps on the tin roof of the hotel. 
I listened attentively, thinking some one was 
climbing on the roof of a small extension cov- 
ered with tin, which crackled as all tin roofs do. 
I counted the footsteps on my fingers, and he took 
exactly eight steps, which brought him directly 
under a window at the end of the hallway, which 
he opened and climbed in. The doors of all these 
rooms were off their hinges, as the up-stairs was 
undergoing repairs. He went very softly along 
and passed into the room directly above mine. He 
had only to enter from the alleyway at the back, 



154i The Tragedy of the Klondike 

to climb on this roof, and he was screened from 
view by a huge sign on the street side, and on the 
other by the dance-hall, which I have previously 
described. Once in the hotel he was in the dark- 
ness, and could make his way out easily by the 
same route by which he had entered, safe from 
observation at any point. 

I called Eddie, and told him what I had 
heard, and he went up stairs with a light. But 
my calling to Eddie alarmed the intruder, who- 
ever he was, and the sound of his jumping to the 
ground from the tin roof was distinctly audible, 
as footsteps on frozen ground always are. Eddie 
with his light searched all these vacant rooms 
without finding any one or anything except that 
the hall window had been left open when the 
miscreant made his escape. The whole house was 
securely locked from below. I was not satisfied, 
and sent down stairs for Jack McNeeley, who 
came up, and when he heard my story laughed at 
me and said it must have been cats playing on the 
roof, and that what I had passed through made 
me easily frightened. Jack went back down 
stairs and Eddie retired to his sofa in the next 
room. 

About four hours later, or at three A. M., I 
again felt sure I heard the same window raised 
and the same footsteps pass through the hall and 
enter the room over my head. I had been mis- 
taken the first time, both Jack and Eddie had 
assured me, so I kept still. Suddenly I felt my- 
self being overcome with sleep. I could hardly 
keep my eyes open, but I said to myself, I must 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 1 >.> 

not sleep when I am on watch. I'll get up and 
move around. I pulled the fur robe that cov- 
ered me from my chest and found the part over 
my breast wet with chloroform. I threw the robe 
from me and struggled to my feet, and at the 
same instant a stream of chloroform came pour- 
ing down into my face. I screamed to Eddie, 
"There's a man up there! Go quickly!" Again 
my voice drove off the man. Pie ran through the 
hallway, and jumped out of the window, again 
leaving it open. Eddie closed it, and then sent 
a messenger from the cafe for Dr. Willis Everett, 
and he brought Dr. Thompson. They came 
quickly, and I told them of this latest attempt on 
my life. 

Dr. Everett wanted to go up and examine the 
room above, but Dr. Thompson, who was a Ca- 
nadian and was running for member of Parlia- 
ment, said, "No! We are not detectives!" (It 
may be said that he succeeded in being elected 
through the help of the "ring.") They left, and 
Jack McNeeley and Eddie went up and ex- 
amined the room over my head whence the chloro- 
form had been poured upon me. They found in 
the room directly over my head that a three- 
cornered hole had been cut in the carpet and 
then turned back and a hole about three inches 
long and half an inch wide had been cut through 
the floor and through the pine-board ceiling just 
over my head. The chloroform had been dropped 
through that opening onto me. This accounted 
for the splinters and small shavings which the 
chamberman found on my fox robe that was over 



156 TJie Tragedy of the Klondike 

me the first time I smelt the chloroform, had a 
chill and sent for a physician, and for which 
neither the chamberman nor I could account at 
the time. 

Mr. McGuire, the United States detective, 
came to me the next day and warned me to go out 
at once. "Nobody can protect you or help you 
out. You are a smart woman; make your plans 
and escape in the darkness or I will not be re- 
sponsible for your safety. This committee comes 
from Clifford Sifton, and not from Lord Minto, 
and it's all a fraud — they're here to do some devil- 
ish work, though I haven't yet found out what 
it is. But you must get out or get killed. That's 
all there is to it. I must go out the back way, 
for they are watching me," and he left me with 
good wishes for a safe journey. 

A young man named Robertson, who had de- 
clared his intentions of becoming a Canadian, and 
who was a stool-pigeon for McGuire when the 
latter was in the United States service, called 
that same evening at my rooms and wanted to 
see me. Dr. Everett had warned me to admit no 
one, but remembering this fellow's a,ssociation 
with my good friend McGuire, I admitted him 
to my rooms. I thought he might have a message 
forme. His errand was soon disclosed. He wanted 
to know if I would make an arrangement to settle 
all my differences with the bank and never say 
anything more about it, and added that he came 
authorized by the bank, and what would be my 
price ? 

Assuming even that this offer was made in 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 157 

good faith, which I did not then and do not now 
beHeve, yet I was never so indignant at "the 
gang" as at that moment. My pride was hurt 
and I was insulted. 

What kind of men were these who had pur- 
sued and persecuted and robbed me and would 
have taken my last dollar without compunction; 
who had three times attempted my life, and each 
time I was almost miraculously saved; who had 
condemned me to weeks of the most terrible suf- 
fering ; that when with the help of God I had out- 
witted them at every point they should come and 
attempt to buy me as if I were for sale, soul and 
body, as they were. These "gentlemen," who 
were officials of :i province of His Majest^^'s gov- 
ernment and backed up by troops flying the 
British flag and bearing British rifles wherewith 
to make war upon sick women — faugh ! My rage 
and disgust were unspeakable. 

I told him to tell the gang I wanted none of 
their dirty money, and that it was merely a ques- 
tion of time when their acts would bring about 
an international complication, and when peace 
was made it would demand their carcasses as the 
sheep for a burnt off'ering. 

Then he asked me for himself for work, say- 
ing he was disgusted with his job, and would quit 
to-morrow if he could make a bare living. He 
said, "You know winter is coming on, and it is a 
hard country to be in without money or work." 

I told him there was nothing I could give 
him, not a lease on which he could make a dollar, 
but I said, "Don't go hungry; come to me and 



158 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

I'll give you a meal-ticket. It's the best I 
can do." 

He looked at me so strangely I asked him out- 
right, "Why do you look at me in that way? Do 
I look so badly since my sickness?" 

He just shook his head and said, "I never 
thought I was a bad fellow or that I could be 
influenced to do anything very v. rong, but when 
a man's broke he's liable to do things he would 
not if he had plenty of money." 

At this I said, "You certainly are not a bad 
fellow% and I have no fear of your doing any- 
thing very wrong." I offered him a meal-ticket, 
which he refused, and bade me a pleasant good- 
night. 

This same Robertson came into the cafe the 
next afternoon and sat down at the horse-shoe 
counter in the center and was displaj'^ing a new 
Kruj)p pistol. Jack ]\IcXeeley told him to put it 
away. "It's not loaded," he replied. "Never 
mind," said Jack, "women and children come in 
here, and I don't propose to have you frighten 
them, even with an empty gun." 

He sat there until Eddie came in at his usual 
time, five o'clock, and sat down to his supper. 
Eddie left the door locked and slipped the key 
under it, as I had told him to do, since after my 
recovery I thought he would be pleased at the 
change from eating his meals in a sick-room. No 
sooner had Eddie been served and begun eating 
than this fellow left the cafe and came up-stairs 
and knocked on the door of mv room. 

"Who is there?" I asked. ' 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 159 

"It is I, Robertson," he said. 

I told him he would have to come later, as 
Eddie was at his dinner. He said in a stage whis- 
per at the crack of the door, "I have an important 
message for you — something you will be glad to 
hear!" 

I arose, went to the door, took the key from 
the floor, unlocked it and returned to my chair 
in the middle of the room, which would be about 
six feet from the door, and sat down, telling him 
to come in. He opened the door, and entering 
closed it, standing a little to the left of the door. 
He had in his hand a canvas pack-saddle, such as 
is used on dogs in that country. This he deposited 
on the floor. When I was seated I looked, and 
I wish I could describe his appearance accurately. 
He was relaxed and trembling, his eyes were 
bulging out of his pale, perspiring face, and he 
looked the picture of a frightened man. Per- 
spiration was pouring from his forehead and his 
veins stood out like whipcords. 

I exclaimed, "What's the matter, Robertson? 
You look frightened." 

"I have just come in from Rock Run from a 
quartz claim and I have something here I want 
to show you," he answered. At the same time he 
stooped down and began fumbling in the bag. I 
watched him and saw the handle of a gun, which 
he Avas taking from the bag. I saw the meaning 
of the conversation of the previous night instantly 
and made a lunge for the door, found the knob, 
and was in the hallway, letting out scream 
after scream. I fell into the arms of the cook 



160 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

from down stairs, who heard my first scream 
and rushed up to see what was the matter. 
At this moment I saw Robertson running down 
stairs unloading his gun as he ran. There never 
was any explanation of this. You may draw 
your own conclusion. 



T 



CHAPTER XIII 

"^HE investigating committee of six which 
came in from Ottawa was at this time in 
session daily at the court-house. A very 
venerable old judge presided over the ses- 
sions of the committee. It was a glorious 
farce. Everything which in any way re- 
flected on the government was promptly and 
firmly ruled out of court. This went on for about 
four days. Joe Clarke, Mr. Beddo, the editor, 
Dr. Catto and Colonel McGregor and Lawyer 
Woodworth undertook to get the facts on the rec- 
ord. The treatment accorded them was most in- 
solent. The eight or ten leading citizens shook 
their fingers under the nose of the hoaryheaded 
old scoundrel who presided. The miners from up 
the creek were assembled outside, hot and boiling, 
and the threat of the previous day was made 
good, and the committee hastily gathered up their 
documents end fled from the court-house. Clif- 
ford Sifton had acted wisely in selecting the old- 
est and most feeble judge in Canada to preside 
on the bench, knowing that such honorable men 
as Joe Clarke and his followers would no sooner 
assault such a man than they would a dying child. 
They did not stop to adjourn court, and in 
less than two hours they were on the steamer 
bound for home. They were followed by the 
crowd of citizens to the water's edge. And they 

161 



162 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

left amid a storm of derision, catcalls and laugh- 
ter, to return to Clifford Sifton and report their 
discomfiture to him. 

The excitement was intense. The miners had 
come in armed, and the situation was critical in 
the extreme. This was the first step toward driv- 
ing "the ring" out of the province, and the fight- 
ing began in a very brief time. I abandoned my 
mines and allowed them to revert to the govern- 
ment. 

The last attempt to assassinate me was one 
too many, and I began very secretly to perfect 
my plans for leaving the Territory. It was im- 
possible for me to ride across country in the state 
of my health and the condition of the roads. 

This was Saturday, and at two o'clock the 
wife of an official for whom I had once done a 
great kindness hurriedly entered the back door 
and told me I was to be thrown into jail, where I 
was to be murdered and then adjudged a suicide 
and quickly buried. She begged me to get away 
in some way at once. A policeman came to the 
house with papers in his hand about four o'clock, 
and I hid, while some one told him I had gone 
up the creek, but would be back early on Mon- 
day. As ]Mrs. Keys, the wife of my foreman, had 
been with me all day and just returned, added 
to the fact that the policeman's Dutch blood was 
still boiling in his heart (for he was a near kin 
of Oom Paul) , they were compelled to wait till 
JMonday morning to serve the papers, 

I hr.d also been told that the shore on the 
opposite side of the river at the boundary line. 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 1G3 

the last police barracks down the river, was now 
being searched every half hour by mounted po- 
lice. This was discouraging and increased the 
risk I had to run in getting away. At seven 
o'clock I sent a message to Mr. Du Bell, asking 
him to come to me at once, which he did. This 
man had always expressed his appreciation of the 
fact that during the epidemic I had attended and 
nursed him for eight weeks, and pulled him 
through. He alvi ays desired to do something for 
me, and on receipt of my message he came across 
the river in a little peterboro boat and landed at 
the foot of Ring Street about a block and a half 
from the hotel, but on the main street. He was 
on hand promptly, and I asked if I could go 
across with him and stay a few days at his house. 
I did not tell him my plans, but he knew exactly 
what I wanted. I asked him to take a heavy fox- 
fur coat and some valuable papers across, and 
then return to the foot of King Street for me at 
eleven o'clock that night and wait, if I were late, 
in the shadow. 

Jack Farr, the restaurant proprietor, had told 
me that there was a special watch set upon the 
liouse. He could be seen across the street watch- 
ing my windows. When I went to bed and my 
light went out this watchman would stroll away 
to the dance-hall or similar places, and the rest of 
the night no espionage was maintained until early 
morning. 

I left the light burning in my room and 
stepped into an adjoining room, which was dark. 
I satisfied myself that the policeman who was 



164 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

across the narrow street was watching my win- 
dows. I was already dressed for my journey, 
but I sHpped on a nightgown over my clothing, 
went up to my window and stood there a few 
minutes while the policeman looked up at me. 
Then I pulled down the shade and turned out the 
light, took off the nightdress, went into the dark 
room and watched the zealous policeman go into 
the dance-hall adjoining. I rang the bell for 
Jack McNeeley, and he came at once. He helped 
me into my heavily-lined sealskin coat and a light 
Fedora hat and tied a white veil over my face. I 
took my umbrella, my entire baggage, and whicli 
I used as a cane for support. I said good-bye to 
Jack McNeeley, who cried and wished me well, 
and entered on my long, perilous journey. 

It was midnight, but the street was electrically 
lighted. I scanned the street, which was deserted, 
everybody seeming to be in the dance-halls, and 
so, holding by a long picket fence extending 
nearly to the water, I was making my way to 
the river at the best pace I could. Half way to 
the river I met two policemen, who stepped out 
from an alleyway. I held my breath and did some 
quick thinking. They were sure to know me if 
they saw my face and my limp. As thej'- came 
up I turned my back and began fumbling in the 
bosom of my dress as if I had lost something. 
They passed me by, and I kept turning until they 
approached and entered a dance-hall. I had some 
difficulty in making a small depression, for 1 
could not lift my feet clear of the ground going 
down hill. I feared to fall and not be able to 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 165 

arise, when Du Bell, who had been watching, saw 
me coming, and running up picked me up and 
carried me to the boat and placed me in it. Not 
a word was spoken, and in silence we reached 
the other side. 

Going up to Du Bell's house his wife was 
waiting for us. There I rested, while some slight 
repairs were made to the boat. Mrs. Du Bell 
gave us some hot coffee, and put up a large box 
of canned-beef sandwiches with which to nourish 
us until we should reach another stopping-place. 
At two o'clock Mr. Du Bell lifted me into the 
boat and seated me near the stern and whispered 
to me, "I will not be responsible for this man. 
I don't know anything about him. I have hired 
him by the month to take vegetables across the 
river to market, but you will have to take your 
chances ; it is the only way. He is the best boat- 
man I ever saw, and I'm sure he'll get you down 
the river all right; but my advice is not to allow 
him to land." 

At this moment the boatman stepped into the 
boat, and with a whispered farewell Du Bell 
pushed the craft into the water. She swung 
around with her nose pointed down stream and 
the journey had begun. There were before us 
about seven hours of t^vilight, the sun not show- 
ing at this time of year before nine o'clock. And 
with a current always swift and sometimes tor- 
rential, when day should break we would be many 
miles from Dawson on our way to the coast. 
Du Bell's last whispered chat to me had fright- 
ened me terribly. 



166 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

The scene was wild and beautiful; the high 
mountains on either side cast their black shadows 
gloomily enough over the surface of the water, 
but where the stream broadened out the water 
shone like black glass. The current in the nar- 
rower gorge of the river was running from 20 
to 30 miles an hour, and my boatman had little 
to do with his oars but keep her head straight and 
prevent her swinging broadside on in the rapidly 
flowing stream. 

There was one other precaution which I had 
taken, and that was to carry a pair of powerful 
bone forceps with me. 

We glided silently along; I was watching 
carefully the telegraph wire. After about 15 
miles had passed I espied a tent on the bank of 
the stream, and the boatman, who had solemnly 
promised not to stop at any tents, immediately 
turned the nose of the boat inshore. My protest 
was of no avail; go to that tent he would, and 
go to that tent he did. While he was gone I 
espied a telegraph pole down almost touching the 
nose of the boat and the wires within easy reach. 
I did not hesitate an instant, and seizing my 
powerful forceps I cut the wires, rendering it im- 
possible for the garrison at DaAvson to communi- 
cate with the military post at Forty-mile Kun. 
I did not tell the boatman what I had done. I 
had already obtained such a start that even the 
police steam-launches could not overtake me now, 
and I had removed the danger of their telegraph- 
ing down the river to head me off. That was 
what I had most dreaded, and now nothing but 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 167 

some remote contingency, not to be foreseen, 
could interfere with my plans. It seemed as if 
Providence held me in the hollow of its hand.. 

The boatman returned, and giving no reason 
for his stoppage, pushed oiF the boat, and we con- 
tinued our journey. I then entered into con- 
versation with my boatman whom I had taken 
from Du Bell's. 

I looked him all over, and he was no Apollo. 
About five feet seven inches, or a little below 
medium height, he looked to weigh about 145 
pounds, all muscle. He wore his hair closely 
cropped and no beard. He looked at least 40 
years old, and a more forbidding and degenerate 
face I have never seen. 

I opened the conversation by saying, "Du 
Bell forgot to tell me your name." 

"My name is Babcock," he replied. I had 
an impression when I saw him that there was 
something familiar about his face. I finally, after 
some hard thinking, succeeded in putting the 
name and the face together. I had never seen 
him, but his picture had been in all the govern- 
ment newspapers. Then I returned to the attack. 

"Were you not with George O'Brien Avhen 
those three young fellows were killed going out 
on the trail, starting for home at Seattle some 
time ago?" I asked. 

This brought him up with a start. "No! I 
wasn't with him when they were killed. That is, I 
mean I wasn't with him in that tent but I was with 
him in the express office cabin sometime before 
that." 



168 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

I just sat there and looked at him, my hair 
trying to stand on end, and cold chills running up 
and down my spine. The dawn was just begin- 
ning to break and I could see his features still 
more plainly. 

"Oh! you needn't look so scared, I never killed 
anybody," he said. 

"By the way," said I, "do j^ou know Percy 
Hope, manager of one of the company's stores?" 

"Yes, I know him." 

I had heard him tell Du Bell that Hope was 
going out on Tuesday and wanted to see Du Bell 
before he started. I considered this a masterly 
piece of diplomacy. I told him, "The reason I 
ask you is because I gave Percy Hope all my 
money and my diamonds except $25. He agreed 
to meet me at the Rainier Grand Hotel and give 
them back to me. Do you think he will make 
trouble?" 

"Oh, no, Percy is all right." 

"This is all I have with me and I want you to 
take this $25 and hurry me safely across the line. 
I would rather jump into the river than be cap- 
tured and I don't want to be found with a dollar 
on me." 

I extended my hand to him with the money in 
it. He gazed at me with a dubious expression 
Avhich said plainly, "I don't believe a word of that 
yarn." I held out my hand and waited fully five 
minutes during which he was apparently in deep 
thought and then he extended his hand, took the 
money and thrust it in his breast. This broke the 
ice and we bcame sociable, he asking where I was 
born, where I had lived, and such questions. ^* 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 160 

We reached the vicinity of Forty-mile Post 
at about ten o'clock. Day had broken and we 
went ashore, pulling the boat up on the bank and 
up into the weeds and covering it with brush for 
concealment. We lay down and watched the 
river. Several boatloads of miners passed, but 
no police boats in any direction. While we were 
here we ate good IMrs. Du Bell's sandwiches. I 
^vas not hungry, for I was too worried and 
anxious, so the lion's share fell to Babcock, who 
had navigated the boat for fifty miles and was 
as hungry as a hunter. Here we had to remain 
until the dark of the night in concealment. At 
any rate we rested, after our sleepless night, but 
did not slumber any, the risk was too great. The 
Post was just two miles ahead of us, and we had 
landed at the bend of the river where there was a 
little sheltered cove not visible from the Post. 
We waited here until eight o'clock that night, and 
then slipped the boat into the water and dropped 
down about two mJles almost opposite the Post. 
Every half hour sentries from there came over 
and searched the shore. The river was narrow at 
this point. Watching our chance we pulled the 
boat up again into a dense underbrush and care- 
fully concealed it and ourselves and waited for it 
to become pitch dark. We had hardly completed 
our ambuscade when across the water we could 
hear the patrol leave their quarters, throw the 
oars into the boat and start for our side of the 
river. Like "Ole Brer Rabbit," all we could do 
was to lay low, and we did. We flattened our- 
selves against the ground until we were not 



170 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

thicker than postage stamps. When they landed 
on our side they separated, always one going up 
and the other down the river. They were dis- 
cussing the Boer war, and as soon as they became 
unintelligible to each other they shortened their 
fifty-yard beats and came back. One passed me 
so closely that I could have reached out and 
touched him. They v/ent into their boat, and 
when their door was heard to close on the Post 
side, I just said, "Pst" to Babcock. 

He gently launched the boat and put me in. 
We had not gone far v\ hen we heard a sound, and 
a terrifying one. A rapid filled the river, leav- 
ing only a narrow channel on the Post side. Bab- 
cock's splendid oarsmanship then came to the 
front and saved us from what seemed inevitable 
shipwreck and death. His powerful strokes car- 
ried us across to the channel and we swung 
around again headed down stream. But the thing 
that prevented our discovery was the opportune 
barking of a pack of dogs at the Post, which 
drowned the sound of the oars as Babcock bent 
to them and put his great weight on them. Had 
one of them broken we were inevitably lost. For 
the next ten miles Babcock bent to his oars until 
the boat fairly flew through the water, and then 
even his Herculean strength gave out, and he said 
he could go no further; we must go ashore and 
rest. As we were within six miles of the Amer- 
ican line I felt rebellious, but he flatly refused, 
and added that we must have daylight in order 
to see the rocks in the channel. So ashore we 
went, and he pulled the boat up and lay down be- 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 171 

hind a log. He wanted to build a fire, and we 
had a heated whispered argument over it. I told 
liim if he did I would crawl down the bank on my 
hands and knees, so he abandoned the camp-fire 
idea and went to sleep, while I kept watch. I am 
not sure I did not nap it after my long vigils, but 
I was awakened by the sound of footsteps, soft 
and stealthy, as of one having moccasins on. I 
could dimly see that he was picking up firewood 
and piling it up on his arm. When he had passed 
out of sight I began throwing pebbles at Bab- 
cock to arouse him without speaking. He awoke 
and feeling sure something was wrong crawled 
over to where I was concealed. I whispered, 
"There is somebody besides ourselves concealed 
around here." He rose up, shading his eyes with 
his hands, and after looking around carefully 
pointed upward to where I could see an English 
flag floating. He made a hasty reconnaissance 
and then coming back carried me to the boat and 
placed me in it, and with the strength of a sea- 
soned sailor he pushed that boat into the stream 
and let her float down the river. When he was 
feeling his way his paddle made no more noise 
than a fish would in the water. I was not able to 
see into this mystery until he thought it safe to 
speak. "Do you know what I found up there?" 

"No. What?" 

"A tent flying the British flag and two police- 
men. Temporary camp. Watching for us !" 

My breath came fast, but the promised land 
was then but a mile or two away, and over it 
floated the stars and stripes. We had escaped 



172 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

from Egypt, the land of bondage, into God's own 
country. 

In a very short time we passed the stone mark- 
ing the boundary and over which floated the 
American flag, and safe in the arms of my Uncle 
Sam, I drew the first long breath I had draw^n 
in manj'-, many months. I really felt the reaction 
and it made me very weak. 

We were hungry, having long ago exhausted 
Mrs. Du Bell's sandwiches, and having had no 
other food since leaving Dawson. It was one 
o'clock P. M., when after floating with the cur- 
rent, we reached Eagle City, about 30 miles be- 
low. Here I said good-bye to Babcock, who had 
served me faithfully to the end. 

Eagle City is a mining-camp, or was; it had 
been deserted for two reasons ; first, as soon as the 
government establishes courts, the judges begin 
stealing, and the miner, who is perfectly willing 
to abide by mining-laws and also the unwritten 
laws common to mining-camps all the world over, 
picks up his tools and lights out for the latest dis- 
covery and begins over again. Many of the 
miners at Eagle and Circle Citj'^ went on to Fair- 
banks for these reasons. 

The few people loafing about gathered to see 
us land, and the landlord and Babcock assisted 
me to go ashore a short distance to the hotel. 

I had a comfortable room and a good hot din- 
ner and went to bed. At seven o'clock the next 
morning I embarked on the Northern Com- 
mercial's steamboat to St. Michael's on the Behr- 
ing Sea. It is about 2,000 miles from Dawson 
to the mouth of the Yukon River. 



CHAPTER XIV 

' M ^ HE next few days were restful ones to me. 
I I was chatting with a lady passenger as 
we passed tlirough the Arctic Circle, tell- 
ing her I hoped to reach my southern home in 
dear old St. Augustine in a few weeks. 

She replied, "You will have to look out for 
this man Judge Greene, at Ramparts ; he is both 
judge and manager for the Northern Commercial 
Company. They got him appointed to do their 
dirty work, and he does it. He holds people up 
going down the river and collects fraudulent ac- 
counts that are sent to him from Dawson, 
Canada." 

I said I did not believe it. 

She said, "There is something going on on this 
boat now. Some one is to be held up, I am sure." 

We soon landed at Ramparts, and I was en- 
joying my dinner when a young man by the name 
of Phil North touched me on the shoulder and 
served a paper on me, demanding my trunk and 
all my hand baggage. The complaint said I had 
collected money in Dawson, Canada, for one 
George Sidel, who was a free passenger with me 
on the Northern Commercial Company's lioat, 
and that I had failed to turn over the money, 
which they claimed was $400. I had never col- 
lected a cent or been authorized to collect any 

173 



174 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

money for an}'- one in Canada. I told the deputy, 
North, that it was an extortion game, and to go 
back and tell Judge Greene that he had made a 
mistake in his victim. He told me I must appear 
in Judge Greene's court at 1.15 or he would 
be comj)elled to take me. When I had finished 
my dinner I went to my stateroom. Almost im- 
mediately this man bolted into my stateroom with 
a gun in his hand and demanded that I give up 
all my belongings. He took my traveling-bag 
v-'ith my nightdress and my trunk with my seal- 
skin and heavy winter wear, and took it to the 
store of the Northern Commercial Company. I 
refused to leave the boat, and after several hours 
they steamed on down the river. When we ar- 
rived at Fort Gibbon it was terribly cold. Ice 
was running in the river. 

I was compelled to go ashore without a wrap 
or my woolen mitts ; they were still in the posses- 
sion of the Northern Commercial Company's 
judge. 

We had stopped here to take on furs from the 
Indian trading-post. That night the ice came 
down the Tanana River and we v/ere frozen in. 
Had I waited another week in Da^^ son, as I had 
originally planned, I could not have gotten 
through. This was another special providence. 
Here I v/as at Fort Gibbon, a United States mili- 
tary post, but I was at a loss where to spend the 
winter. It was September 29, with a prospect of 
eight months in the ice with no communication 
with the outside world. I could not be taken in 
at the fort, nor remain on the steamboat, so it was 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 175 

the Indian village for mine. Mrs. Bartlett, a 
white woman, took me into her cabin. I had 
taken cold since my winter wraps were taken 
from me, and Dr. Everett had warned me to be 
very careful not to take cold, as it would stiif en 
my muscles. I was sick here for many weeks. 
]My glands were badly swollen again, and my 
neck was so stiff I could not turn my head for 
many months without turning my whole body. 
I sent to the Post and asked Captain Gahart for 
some medicine from the regimental medicine- 
chest. "Ah, he was so sorry, but it was strictly 
against army regulations. He had the remedy in 
large quantity, but could not possibly let me have 
any." I sent to the Indian mission, three miles 
from Fort Gibbon, to Miss Mason, of Boston, 
who founded the Episcopal mission and was there 
for the long winter with the Rev. Mr. Pre- 
vost and his wife. They came at once and 
brought the medicine and looked after me until I 
was well enough to go to the mission, where I 
was made welcome and to feel like one of them- 
selves. People who sneer at missionaries have no 
conception of their goodness and kindness in the 
remotest of places, and though I had money I 
could buy nothing with it, and they gave aid 
freely. 

Shortly after this Judge Greene came down 
the river to Fort Gibbon, and while he was there 
Captain Gahart tried to collect this money from 
me for Judge Greene. I told the captain if he 
would open up a court and hear the case I would 
talk to him, otherwise I thought he had better 



176 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

stay inside of the military reservation. Jud 
Greene went home. When they found they col 
not extort one dollar from me they sent my tru: 
and valise to me at Fort Gibbon. 

On account of these constant and flagra 
outrages on the people there is sure to come a d 
of reckoning. Equal and exact justice before t 
law is a farce, and the dishonest judge is as co] 
mon on the Atlantic coast as he is on Behri] 
Sea. Lawyers in the West, as in the East, t 
coiTupt, and the judges are in with these steale 
There is a limit to the patience of the people, a 
the day is not far off when this crop of blackm 
and dishonesty will bear bitter fruit, of whi 
their children will be forced to partake. This 
no bid for anarchy, but only a warning to all su 
grafters who refuse to see the handwriting on \ 
wall, "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" (You £ 
weighed in the balance and found wanting 
which met the terrified vision of Nebuchadnezz; 

About this time a new camp was struck on t 
American side, 240 miles up the Tanana Riv^ 
called Fairbanks. Every one made the usi 
rush for the new strike, as is customary in mi 
ing regions all over the world. As soon as I w 
able I hired a man and dogs and started for Fa 
banks to look after my mining interests. 

When I arrived tliere in April, 1904, the sai 
conditions prevailed that were in Dawson wh 
I first went in. I was again a pioneer. Th 
were having their clean-ups, and the resu 
showed thousands of dollars in gold. The aurif ( 
ous soil was so rich that the figures might 



The Tragedy of the Klondike 177 

doubted by one who knew nothing of practical 
mining. 

I remained here until the 9th of June, then 
started for Nome, where I had to stay a week 
waiting for the steamship owing to the terrific 
surf running. 

We landed at San Francisco, and I left at 
once over the Southern Pacific Railway for home, 
landing at St. Augustine, Florida, the 9th of 
August, just two months' travel from the frigid 
Behring Sea and the golden but frozen shores of 
Alaska, to the groves of golden fruit in Florida, 
on the balmy bay of Matanzas. 

I had made a promise to the miners before I 
left Alaska that I would write a book so that the 
government at Washington and the people of 
the East might know the conditions under which 
they lived and worked to add to the world's hoard 
of gold; might know their wrongs, which they 
had neither knowledge nor eloquence nor oppor- 
tunity to give to the world. With pick and 
shovel and sluice-box, with "giant" and quartz 
mill, with all the modern mining machinery they 
work. Ill-fed, ill-clothed, uncared-for when sick, 
dumped into a box when they die, these men with 
the greed for gold in their kindly hearts work for 
others. Few ever return, fewer still ever keep a 
fortune made in "a lucky strike." Nature hides 
her gold in most remote places, and grows her 
grain in broad fields, but the speculative sharks 
of the stock exchanges get the profits. The min- 
ers are lucky to get a living, and a mighty poor 
one at that. A little bad whiskey and a dance- 



178 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

hall full of unattractive women are the only dis- 
sipation they know; but they toil on, hope ever, 
and at last go over the range where it is to be 
hoped their lot will be happier and their conduct 
correspondingly better. To these victims of mad- 
ness which the sight of gold-dust produces a bene- 
diction, for most of them have brave hearts and 
hands soiled with the dirt of ^lother Earth and 
not v/ith the stains which mark the thief. Seek 
him in the busy mart. 



The End 



APPENDIX 

To the President J Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States: 

This book has been written with the purpose 
of presenting to the general public as well as 
yourselves the conditions existing in the mining 
regions of the great Northwest under both the 
American flag and the English flag. 

While one feels inclined to resent the wrongs 
done under the British flag, it must be confessed 
that (excepting the attempt to murder) there is 
little to choose between the two in their treat- 
ment of the miner. 

As a result the development of the gold-fields 
has been greatly retarded thereby. If the claims 
are yielding good returns, in comes a judge with 
a lot of blackleg lawyers to involve them in all 
kinds of litigation, and through what they call 
"law and evidence" take their money as fast as it 
comes out of the ground. 

I know of a place about 600 miles from Fair- 
banks in the interior of Alaska where about a 
dozen old miners are now taking out fabulous 
wealth and burying it, until they can get it out 
of the country. They keep the entrance to the 
canyon guarded day and night to keep their se- 
cret work quiet and thus prevent the judges and 

179 



180 The Tragedy of the Klondike 

lawyers from coming in wrapped in the cloak of 
the law to rob them of their hard earnings. 

So great is the distrust of the honesty of the 
judges that when a judge comes into the country 
to organize a court, it is a signal for the old miner, 
who knows from experience that he is to be the 
victim of litigation and robbery, and he picks up 
at once and makes tracks for the latest reported 
"new strike." 

I know of camps that have been abandoned, 
where the dirt pays as well as ever, where only a 
few years ago were ten thousand miners working. 
Upon the advent of the court the camp shrank to 
five hundred for this reason. 

The character of many of these judges for 
both honesty and morality is so low as to force 
one to believe they are appointed to get them as 
far away from Washington as possible. One 
conspicuous instance of this is in my mind. He 
took the court ten miles up a slough from Chenoa 
to Fairbanks, off the main navigable stream, the 
Tanana River, undoubtedly to increase the in- 
terest of the Northern Commercial Company 
(whose influence I was told secured his appoint- 
ment) as well as his own real-estate holdings. 

This book tells the evils; now for a few sug- 
gestions as to how to cure the evil. 

Place every camp under the jurisdiction of 
the Department of the Interior, until it is prop- 
erly incorporated and can elect its own judges. 
Let the camp remain under miners' law until that 
time. In the meantime let the President appoint 
three Mining Commissioners as a bureau of the 



The /Tragedy of the Klondike 181 

/ 

Interior Dep^artment, who shall have full juris- 
diction and act as a Court of Appeals in all cases 
arising in unimcorporated mining-camps. 

Do what you think best, but in the name of 
justice give these miners relief from Official 
Spoliation and Oppression, 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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